Giants Blame Mattresses for Mounting Injuries

Injuries mount and the Giants blame their beds for some of them

The Giants have spent some time in a bad mood during training camp because of the way some around the league have discredited their Super Bowl run as a product of luck instead of talent.

Little did they know that even their own mattresses were against them. Several Giants said Tuesday that the mounting number of back injuries at camp this summer have been caused by the beds the team provided in Albany.

They are twin beds, a step down from what the Giants have provided in past years, and that's a problem for the oversized gentlemen that put their health at risk for our entertainment 16 or more times a year. We'll let tight end Martellus Bennett explain the issue in the vivid manner that has become his trademark.

"We're big humans," Bennett said. "You can’t put a dinosaur in a twin-size bed."

Bed-Lam (not an official name, but let's get past putting Gate at the end of things already) took over camp on Tuesday and you have to wonder how far things will go from here. Have the Giants installed these beds because they felt the team was living too easy after winning the championship?

Is it a cost-saving measure? Seems silly, but this is a team (one of many, including the Jets) that charged their fans big money for the right to spend big money on tickets so they clearly aren't opposed to milking out bucks anywhere they can find them.

Camp is over and the Giants are heading back to Jersey so we don't have time for Sleepy's or some other business to look like heroes by coming to the rescue with pillow-topped dream factories, but we might not be done hearing about the horrors of the Giants' mattresses. Defensive tackle Marvin Austin is one of the players battling back injuries allegedly caused by these dastardly mattresses and the Giants are starting to run low at that position.

Shaun Rogers is done for the season thanks to a blood clot in his leg, Chris Canty hasn't practiced yet after knee surgery, Martin Parker's got a back problem and Linval Joseph has also complained of back pain in recent days. That leaves Rocky Bernard as the only member of the unit without health issues, something that provides all too vivid a reminder of the state of the secondary heading into last season.

The Giants survived those injuries just fine, obviously, but there's no question that there are less stressful ways to go through life. While no one with a brain in their head would discredit the role the Giants' talent played in their championship run, they also couldn't dismiss the fact that more than a few bounces went the Giants' way last season.

That happens to every championship team in every sport, but it is also something that's impossible to predict as evidenced by the way the breaks went against the Giants when they went 10-6 and missed the playoffs in 2010.

Will the Giants be able to shrug off injuries (including the ones to Hakeem Nicks, Michael Boley, Terrell Thomas and several offensive linemen) once again or will they pay a bigger price this time around?

It's the kind of question you'd like to mull while drifting off to sleep, but only if your bed hasn't been provided by the Giants.

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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