Giants' Terrell Thomas hopes to be back within a month[/B
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ALBANY, N.Y. — Tom Coughlin was smiling while being asked about Terrell Thomas. That, in and of itself, was a good sign.
The Giants’ coach was much more upbeat and optimistic Monday than he’d been about Thomas in the past week after announcing to the media the veteran starting cornerback was cleared by noted orthopedist James Andrews to try rehabbing an injury to his surgically repaired anterior cruciate ligament suffered early in training camp.
Thomas, who is coming off the second surgery on his ACL in his career, will not need a third one — at least not yet. He will do light work on the side and hope his knee doesn’t swell.
The uncertainty of the situation was why Coughlin was grinning in the face of follow-up inquiries about when, and if, Thomas will be back on the field this season after missing all of last season following his injury in August.
“I like your questions. I think they’re great,” Coughlin said with a laugh. “That would be wonderful if he went out there and did all these zigzags and came off and had no swelling and felt great and said, ‘Okay, what’s next?’ But I can’t tell you what the answer’s going go be when he does all of that.”
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The truth is no one knows at this point whether the swelling Thomas experienced when he slipped during a practice early in camp was the sign of more to come.
The hope, according to someone informed of Andrews’ assessment, is Thomas will experience no setbacks as he rehabs the knee and return to practice in about 3-5 weeks.
The person, who requested anonymity because Coughlin declined to put a possible timeframe on Thomas’ return, said the final diagnosis agreed upon by Andrews, Thomas’ surgeon Arthur Ting and the Giants’ medical staff was Thomas “stretched” and “aggravated” the ligament but did not tear it completely.
In all, the fact Thomas didn’t have to undergo a scope and hasn’t been declared out for the season is the best-case scenario.
“I think it is,” Coughlin said. “That’s the best way to put it.”
Thomas is expected to meet with reporters today at UAlbany. Monday afternoon, he tweeted a picture of himself and his daughter, Tatum, with the words, “My GOODLUCK charm.”
Should Thomas not suffer any setbacks, the Giants will likely enter the regular season with him working his way bac*k into game shape and on the active roster. He cannot be placed on the physically-unable-to-perform list because he participated in practices and was not put on PUP before camp began.
And while the NFL owners approved new rules for injured reserve allowing one player to come off of IR when healthy, the league has yet to reach an agreement with the NFL Players Association on the issue.
In short, Thomas needs to get healthy as quickly as possible.
“He’ll jump into a rehab program,” Coughlin said. “We’ll watch him very, very closely, we’ll hopefully accelerate the strengthening of the knee and see how soon he can join us and we’ll hope for the very best.”
Coughlin said he spoke with Thomas in between his visit with Ting in California last week and his trip to see Andrews. During that conversation, Thomas told Coughlin he didn’t have any swelling and that the knee felt stable.
But whether the same issue will arise again as Thomas attempts to return to the field is unclear.
“That’s the whole idea is to find out. So here we go,” Coughlin said. “He’ll jump in there and I’m sure he’ll go hard.”