Shane Vereen Ruled Out For The Season With A Triceps Injury (Update: Turns Out He May Be Back In Two Months)
PFT- The Giants have lost their leading rusher. Giants running back Shane Vereen is out for the season with a triceps injury, the team announced today.
Vereen has 31 carries for 147 yards and a touchdown through three games this season, a healthy 4.7-yard average. His injury will mean more carries for Rashad Jennings, who has been splitting carries with Vereen so far this year. Jennings has 102 yards on 31 carries, an average of 3.3 yards a carry. The Giants will also try to get Orleand Darkwa more involved in the offense. Darkwa has 11 carries for 52 yards this season. Vereen is also fourth on the team in receiving, with eight catches for 75 yards, and the Giants will miss him in the passing game.
Really Football Gods? You sons of bitches couldn’t wait a week to drop the hammer on Giants fans after yesterday’s depressing loss? When Shane Vereen signed with the Giants, I thought he would be a super safety valve for Eli and disappoint as a runner. But Vereen has been a revelation out of the backfield this year. The one word I can use to describe Vereen as a rusher this season is a jitterbug. You know how spry you have to look as a runner for me to use the word jitterbug? That’s what they called running backs in like the 60s. But it fit perfectly. Vereen has been a force in the ground game yet was always there to stop Eli from trying to go Full Eli and force a throw (except for yesterday’s game-ending interception to Vereen which was interceptionception). It would be some shit if that INT lost a game to a division rival and lost an important player for the season. I am also not ready to discount Tom Coughlin calling in a favor to the Football Gods to knock Vereen out for the season for fumbling the last two games because the David Wilson Memorial Doghouse no longer resides at MetLife Stadium now that General Coughlin is gone.
So that leaves the backfield in an interesting place. I like Orleans Darkwa a ton and think he’s a better fit for this offense than the brittle Rashad Jennings. But he is still unproven. Bobby Rainey can probably fill the role of a poor man’s Vereen, even though the coaching staff apparently thinks he’s a poor man’s Plaxico with yesterday’s RIDICULOUS fade route play call to him. And then there is Paul Perkins. You aren’t a warm-blooded football fan if you don’t get irrationally excited about a rookie running back’s college highlight reel. So needless to say, I believe this could be the crack in the door needed to get Perkins some reps and a spot in the national conscience.
But if this Vereen news leads to the Giants re-signing Andre Williams, I may actually cry. Time to go watch Paul Perkins college highlights to fight away the tears.
UPDATE: