Just one thing mattered after Thursday night’s meaningless 28-20 loss to the Patriots at Gillette Stadium. Andre Brown, the bruising half of the Giants’ 1-2 punch at running back with David Wilson, was standing in front of the media in the locker room without the aid of crutches, and he was promising to return soon.
It wasn’t exactly good news, but it was far rosier than it had seemed hours before, when Brown limped off the field just before halftime and was quickly diagnosed with a fractured left leg. At the time, it seemed as if Tom Coughlin’s decision to play Brown well into the first half had led to disastrous results, striking down one half of the Giants’ thunder-and-lightning rushing attack.
But Brown said afterward that the fracture was “not that bad of a break, a tiny little crack in it.” He added that he won’t need surgery, and he doesn’t even think he’ll need the team’s short-term injured reserve designation. His leg was in a walking boot after the game.
“No, I would love to stay active,” Brown said. “That’s how I feel. I feel I can come back from this ... in a couple weeks.”
Still, the Giants will lose Brown for at least a few weeks, and while Coughlin admitted he didn’t have all the details, he did say that Brown would “take a while” to return. And that’s hardly a good prospect for a team that hoped to rely on Brown this season.
Unless there is a good option on the waiver wire, we're recommending a wait-and-see approach with Brown. If he ends up on PUP (missing the first six weeks), he can be cut. If he doesn't, it means the team expects him to play relatively soon. He offers RB3/RB4 value when healthy, but he has a long history of injury. We'd categorize his last two fractures as mainly bad luck, but it's hard to ignore his track record. David Wilson obviously gets a bump, especially to start the season.
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