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Giants linebacker Jon Beason left practice Thursday with a foot injury, and a day later, the team is calling it a ligament tear and a small fracture to the sesamoid in his right foot. He will undergo further tests Monday but NFL Network Kimberly Jones reports that the linebacker could be out 12 weeks.
Whatever the recovery period, Beason hopes to be on the field when the Giants face Lions in the season opener.
“The prognosis is X amount of time and it (the Sept. 8 opener) is within that timeframe,” Beason said Friday, according to Giants.com. “I expect to be back (for that game). If not, I’ll be back as soon as I can. That’s really how you have to look at it. If it’s not 16 (games played), maybe it's 15 or 14. Whatever it is, you want it to be that number as opposed to one."
Beason was traded to the Giants last October, and while he didn't grade out particularly well, according to ProFootballFocus.com, he was part of a Giants defense that ranked sixth in Football Outsiders' efficiency metric (third vs. the run, eighth vs. the pass). But injuries have plagued him throughout his career, which began with the Panthers, who selected him in the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft.
“It’s just one of those things -- you have freak injuries," Beason said. “I was just changing directions. ... I literally felt like I stepped in like a sprinkler head hole. I just felt it give right away, so the next step I knew I couldn’t put the foot down.
“I had a bad feeling," he continued. "I really felt that I that I had torn the extensor, which is the tendon with the muscle, it’s how your big toe functions. That would have been season-ending. So at least now there’s a procedure, possibly. We haven’t decided if it’s something that’s invasive or something that you just kind of let heal on its own. The timeframe is about the same, but it’s not season-ending, so I’m happy about that."
In the meantime, Mark Herzlich, Jameel McClain and Devon Kennard are expected to split reps at linebacker.
