Another Giant Is Done for the Season

Domenik Hixon is the latest Giant to tear his ACL

What are they making ACLs out of in the Giants organization?

Is it tissue paper? Whatever it is, they should try and find a stronger material going forward.

Domenik Hixon will miss the rest of the season after tearing his ACL for the second straight year, joining Terrell Thomas, Jonathan Goff, Clint Sintim and Brian Williams on injured reserve with that injury.

It might be a good idea to wrap everyone else's knees in some kind of industrial strength bubble wrap to avoid any more work for the team's medical staff.

The Hixon injury came on the spectacular catch he made for a touchdown just before halftime in Monday night's victory over the Rams. It is a massive loss for an offense that hasn't looked the least bit comfortable in the first two games of the season.

Making matters worse for Eli Manning and company is the fact that Mario Manningham is still undergoing tests for the concussion he suffered in Monday night's game.

If he isn't able to go against the Eagles, the Giants will have Hakeem Nicks, Victor Cruz and the recently signed Brandon Stokely at wide receiver for a crucial game on Sunday.

The irony of Steve Smith playing for the Eagles against the Giants this weekend shouldn't be lost on anybody. He was the player that the Giants deemed to be too much of a medical risk to re-sign this summer, which makes you wonder just what kind of leeches their doctors use to make these evaluations.

Kidding aside, the fact that an injury to Hixon is a major blow is an indictment of the offseason plan all by itself. He's a nice player, but was coming off a serious injury when he was asked to take on a significant role in the offense.

All of the injuries heap even more pressure on the plate of Manning, who has not shown that he's able to put up big numbers with this year's group even before the injuries stripped away the few options that were available when the season got underway. The running game looked better against the Rams, but teams will likely be even more concerned with taking that aspect of the offense away while forcing Manning to beat them down the field.

If there's any upside to the Hixon news, it is that the Giants can probably keep getting away with their shameful farce of faking injuries to slow things down when the opposing offense gets rolling. Deon Grant and Jacquain Williams got away with it on Monday night and the team can probably keep getting away with it because no one would expect a team this brittle to fake injuries when a real one is just a moment or two away.

Other than that, this is a pretty big mess for the Giants. Keeping the season from turning into one just got that much more difficult.

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City. You can follow him on Twitter and he is also a contributor to Pro Football Talk.

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