When the Giants face the Steelers on Saturday night, one of the big storylines will be the first preseason action for Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
Big Ben will be trying to get some work in before he starts serving the suspension handed down by the league for his apparent inability to avoid ending his nights with claims of sexual assault.
Haveing to deal with a suspended starting QB certainly isn't a situation that the Giants would like to find themselves dealing with but they may actually still find something to envy about the Steelers' signal callers: In Byron Leftwich, Donald Dixon and Charlie Batch, the Steelers have three guys with NFL experience to turn to during Roethlisberger's absence without guaranteeing themselves a lost season.
The Giants didn't have that kind of depth when camp got underway and things only got worse on Thursday. The Giants announced that Jim Sorgi will miss the next 2-3 weeks as a result of a torn capsule and partial dislocation in his right shoulder. That means Rhett Bomar, with zero NFL throws to his name, will start at quarterback on Sunday and will likely play the entire game. The team signed someone named Dominic Randolph to take some practice reps but it's Bomar's show right now.
Obviously Eli Manning's head laceration makes this situation seem all the worse but what it really does is underscore how fast and loose the Giants decided to play things when it came to their depth under center. Sorgi already has a partially torn labrum in his shoulder and he has never started a NFL game in a career devoted to backing up members of the Manning family. The idea that he could step in and do anything more than play the last four minutes of garbage time was flawed from the get-go. Now it looks downright suicidal.
You won't see many comparisons between the way the Mets run their team and the way the Giants run theirs but this certainly qualifies. The Mets have long found themselves scrambling when a player gets hurt because they do nothing to firm up their options for when things go wrong. The Giants appear to have done the same thing at quarterback which is quite strange given the way they blamed last year's collapse on injuries.
You have to plan for the worst case scenario. For the Giants, that scenario is Rhett Bomar taking a meaningful snap. Hopefully Sorgi's injury has opened their eyes to what needs to be fixed.
U.S. & World
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
