Giants want eager Phillips to ease back into game

ALBANY - Kenny Phillips expected to be testing out his left knee Sunday. Instead, it was his patience that was tested.

The Giants safety spent the first practice of training camp doing about 10 minutes of individual drills on a field adjacent to where the team was working, and then walking around among his more active teammates while balancing his helmet on the top of his head.

It wasn't the way he wanted to spend this day, the date of which he had circled and targeted for his return since his knee surgery last September.

Phillips wanted to be back for the first day of camp. "I still do," he said forlornly.

But he'll have to wait. The Giants will be exceedingly cautious with Phillips, making sure he is in the best shape possible before putting him out on the field to run with the team.

Phillips said he knows it's the right decision, that a tweak now could mean trouble the rest of the season, maybe the rest of his career. But that doesn't mean he has to like it.

"They know what's right, they know what's best for me, and I'm pretty sure they'll get me out there sometime later," he said of the medical staff. "I don't think I'm going to miss too much time, so I'm not too disappointed."

There is no timetable for Phillips' return, although when Tom Coughlin announced last week that Phillips would start training camp on the physically unable to perform list, the coach suggested it would be for a week or so.

Phillips, already burned by his first-day-of-camp timetable prediction, offered no updated plan for when he might be back. But he made it very clear he will be back.

"No doubt at all," he said when asked if he is worried that he might never play at the same level he was reaching when he had an operation last year to treat a patellofemoral arthritic condition in his knee. "I feel good. I worked so hard to get to where I'm at now. Just watching myself on film doing the drills and everything, I feel real good. I'm not even worried about it."

It's the Giants' job to worry about it, and clearly they are. Phillips flew to New York from Miami about two weeks ago to work out for Giants officials and said he was told they liked what they saw and were pleased with his progress. That apparently fell short of putting him on the field right away, however.

In the meantime, veterans Antrel Rolle and Deon Grant are getting more and more comfortable as the starting safeties. The two have worked together all spring and already seem to have a connection in this training camp as vocal leaders on the defense.

Grant has gone out of his way to tell Phillips that he is just keeping the seat warm for him and that when he returns, Phillips will be the starter. It's more important that he return and remain healthy than come back early to compete for a job.

"I'll be the first one to say that I told Kenny to take his time," Rolle said. "The last thing you want is a recurring injury or pushing it too fast, and that's going to prolong the process. So I said, 'Make sure you're 150 percent by the time you come back for as long as it takes.' The season doesn't really start until late October anyways."

That's probably not the timeline Phillips wants to hear. For a guy who was eyeing the start of training camp for a return, that must seem like years away.