O'Hara likely to miss rest of preseason with ankle injury

It looks as though the preseason will end just the way it started for the Giants: with Shaun O'Hara nursing an ankle injury.

The starting center missed the first week of training camp with swelling in his ankle. Now, after being limited in Wednesday's practice, he's been placed in a cast that covers his foot and leg, going nearly up to his knee.

He'll wear the cast for a few days and likely will miss the final two preseason games. That's the sacrifice needed to get his injury under control by the time the games start to count, he said.

"We've been riding that roller coaster up and down of feeling good and then feeling bad," O'Hara said of dealing with the injury all month. "Rather than risk doing that the entire season, if we can calm everything down and make a significant improvement for the next few days, then hopefully it's an afterthought once we get to week two."

What is the injury? Tom Coughlin called it "the whole deal."

"It's the ankle, it's the Achilles, it's the tendinitis, it's the swelling that occurs, the soreness," he said.

Judging by the cast running up O'Hara's leg, the most likely culprit is Achilles tendinitis. Coughlin said he is not hearing from doctors that O'Hara could require surgery if the cast does not work.

Speaking of casts, the other offensive lineman who has been wrapped in plaster this summer will be taking O'Hara's place in the starting lineup. Rich Seubert, a guard who broke a bone in his left hand early in camp, will make the move to snapper. It will be his first game action of the preseason after missing the first two contests.

Seubert has played center at various points in his career, but he entered training camp looking to establish himself as the starting left guard. Now his first snaps of the year will be at center. But he didn't seem to mind.

"The point of the game is blocking a guy, right?" he said. "So no matter if I'm playing guard or center or tackle, you're still blocking somebody."

Seubert will get about 25 snaps, Coughlin said, before backup center Adam Koets takes over. It looks as if Guy Whimper will start at left guard. If O'Hara's injury does linger into the regular season, the Giants likely will keep Seubert at center and try to bring recently acquired Shawn Andrews along quickly enough to play left guard.

But there still are two weeks before those decisions start to be made. And a few days of hobbling around in a cast for O'Hara, who was unsure if he even will make the train ride to Baltimore for tomorrow's game.

O'Hara said it was a difficult decision to abandon the rest of the preseason.

"It took a lot of courage for them to do this right now, at this point," he said. "A lot of other teams probably would push a player to go out there and fight through it, and then you're dealing with it week two or week three. With their experience and with their foresight, they're able to say, 'Look, let's focus on what's important and let's see if this can't help us get you through into the future.' "

He added, "I feel pretty good that if all goes well and as planned, that it's something that I won't have to be concerned about when the season starts."