Giants Antrel Rolle suffers ankle injury in practice

The Giants secondary, which was routinely punished last season, may have gotten some very bad news today.

During todays practice, safety Antrel Rolle suffered an ankle injury and had to be carted off the field. He was matched up with tight end Bear Pascoe, and landed awkwardly on his right foot while trying to defend a pass. According to Tom Coughlin, he is scheduled to get an MRI.

Regardless of what you think of Rolle’s skills as a safety, his loss would be enormous for the defense. The Giants are paper-thin at safety outside of Rolle, and if he is seriously injured, the Giants would be forced to roll with a duo of Stevie Brown and Ryan Mundy at the safeties positions, with Will Hill serving out another drug suspension. Considering they’ll be facing Tony Romo, Peyton Manning, and Cam Newton in three of their first four games, this is less than ideal. Other unappealing in-house options include moving Terrell Thomas or Aaron Ross to safety.

The Giants would actually be able to find good value on the FA safety market if they went that way, as Kerry Rhodes and Quintin Mikell are still unsigned and would likely sign for the veteran minimum at this point. However, it’s unclear if the Giants have any kind of financial flexibility to make such a move.

Rolle isn’t a Polamalu-esque safety by any stretch, but he is probably the best safety on the roster, and if the Giants want to field as competent of a defense as possible, they’re going to need him.