New York Giants new starting strong safety Bennett Jackson suffered a season ending injury in the Giant's preseason game with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
When attempting to complete a tackle in the 4th quarter Bennett tore the ACL in his right knee which is just another harsh blow for a team that has had several big injuries to the position in recent months. In the very same game, backup safetie Justin Currie fractured his ankle and will miss the entire season. Bennett had to fill in for Currie for backup duties when it is likely he would play a large role in the upcoming season. Bennett was a converted cornerback whose versatility became a blessing for a Giants team that is currently incredibly thin at safety.
Tom Coughlin made a statement in regards to why one of their only starting safeties left was in a preseason game in the 4th quarter; "The problem is there were two safeties gone in the game as well, so what you were dealing with was very few people left that play the position.
You know, Bennett had been a guy that we had grabbed from cornerback and he worked very, very hard at that job trying to give us another option there, and it's just a sad thing to see it happen, because it's difficult but what went into it was the numbers situation and unfortunately that, you know, however it works, you can explain it all you want, but we were in a game where there was a forced opportunity more than anything else to have your numbers affected.
Coughlin continued ...
"But when we look at it from any number of players that were in the game that got a lot of snaps, whether it was planned or not, it was good for them. I can tell you that right now. As much as I said going in that we needed to play more, that we needed to see more of a lot of people working together, you know we certainly did get that chance last night."
Mykkele Thompson will miss the entire 2015 season with a torn Achilles and safeties Landon Collins, Cooper Taylor and Nat Berhe have all been ailing with various injuries for a couple of weeks now. Collins is possibly the injury that hurts the most because he was the Giants 2nd round pick and was expected to compete right away.
Collins has been said to be far behind when it comes to learning the defensive schemes the Giants use. This is a difficult situation especially considering the Giants are thin in so many areas on defense already thanks to injury.
