Giants are worried about Terrell Thomas

ALBANY -- Tom Coughlin is holding out hope that the Giants will get good news regarding Terrell Thomas' knee injury, but that is getting more and more difficult to do.

"I have enough information though to counter some of that hope," Coughlin said Wednesday, "but I'll always have hope."

Thomas re-injured the ACL on his right knee on Sunday and is in California for further evaluation. Meanwhile, back in Albany, the Giants returned from a day off and got back to the business of moving on without Thomas for the short term and bracing for the possibility that he'll be lost for the season.

"I saw him, and I didn't really have any words to tell him," defensive captain Justin Tuck said. "Obviously he knows that we're all praying for him, and wishing him the best."

In terms of football, safeties coach Dave Merritt said the team plans to move safety Antrel Rolle to nickelback in sub packages until another cornerback can establish himself and show he can play the position. The Giants won a Super Bowl like that, so even though it is not their first choice of alignments, they likely are not worried about it.

More so they are worried about Thomas, whose season and career appear to hang on this diagnosis. "His emotions, I am sure, are very fragile at this point in time," Coughlin said. "He did not show that with me."

Coughlin: Common sense

Coughlin is normally Mr. Law and Order and there isn't much gray in his interpretations of the rules. But when it comes to Tyler Sash's four-game suspension for violating the league's policy against performance enhancing drugs, he'd like to see a little more "common sense."

"This kid really had no intention of doing anything that is illegal," Coughlin said of Sash, who said he was busted for taking Adderall for anxiety under the care of a family physician. "I know what the definition of the rule is and I understand all about that . . . Sometimes you think maybe common sense needs to be involved in this."

Giant steps

After about an hour of full-pads practice a storm moved the Giants' workout indoors to the SEFCU Arena, where they completed their workout as a walk-through on the basketball court . . . Before they moved indoors, Mathias Kiwanuka made the play of the day when he tipped an Eli Manning screen pass to himself for an interception . . . LB Keith Rivers (hamstring) and CB Jayron Hosley (knee laceration) returned to practice . . . Coughlin said the MRI on LB Michael Boley's hamstring showed the injury to be a strain.