Trumaine McBride still healing, still making plays for Giants

Trumaine McBride isn't ready to return. But that hasn't stopped him.

"He intercepts a ball and runs 80 yards every day and they tell me he can't play," Tom Coughlin groused on Wednesday, a day after McBride had his third pick-six of training camp. "I'm looking at [the medical staff] like, 'Who has the two heads right here?' Every day he takes one and goes 80. He looks pretty good to me."

McBride, the forgotten incumbent in the secondary, will miss Saturday's preseason game against the Steelers but is expected to be ready for the following preseason game against the Colts. He's still not cleared for game action after having surgery on a torn labrum in his hip last January, an injury he played with through the latter half of the 2013 season.

It was the hip that took McBride out of the game against the Cowboys. You know, the one where Antrel Rolle had to replace him and play nickel? And it didn't go well? Yeah, that one.

At the time, McBride and the Giants thought it was a groin injury, but he later found out it was the hip. That didn't stop him from starting the last four games of the season (he had 10 starts on the year) and re-signing with the Giants early in free agency.

Now, though, he's been pushed aside by the additions of Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Walter Thurmond III and Zack Bowman. For him to return to the starting lineup, he'll have to leapfrog a lot of players. For him to even make the team could be a challenge. That's why plays such as the interceptions are big.

"That's the goal for me every practice, whether I'm first on the depth chart or second or third is to just make a play every day," he said on Wednesday.

McBride said he still doesn't feel 100 percent. "Right now I'm just following the doctors' plan," he said. "I wouldn't say I feel 100 percent, but I feel good."

McBride is excited about what he'll be able to accomplish this season once he is 100 percent.

"I wasn't last year and I showed I can play hurt," he said.

This year, he just wants to show that he can play. Period.