Justin Tuck Injury: Who Must Step Up to Replace Giants DE?

While the New York Giants were hopeful to have defensive end Justin Tuck for their season opener with the Washington Redskins, the neck injury that the seventh year pro suffered in New York's third preseason game led to the star pass rusher being declared inactive and is yet another blow to a defense that has been decimated by injuries already this season.

Normally, Tuck's absence for a game or two might not be that big a deal, as the New York defensive line is one of the deepest in the NFL, but the Giants are already without the services of defensive end Osi Umenyiora, who had knee surgery in the preseason and is expected to be out at least a couple more weeks.

Also, as the Peyton Manning saga has shown, neck injuries can be tricky, and if the Giants attempt to rush Tuck back onto the field, he could easily re-aggravate the injury and be lost for a significant amount of time, if not the entire 2011 season.

One possibility could be moving strong side linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka back to defensive end, as Kiwanuka has shown he can be a productive player at that position, racking up eight sacks as an end in 2008. However, the Giants have also suffered significant injuries to the linebacker position, losing starting middle linebacker Jonathan Goff to a torn ACL a week ago, which makes moving Kiwanuka back to defensive end a problematic fix as things stand today.

The talent pool among free agent defensive ends is woefully thin, with no real impact players available, but there are some serviceable veteran linebackers available, such as Dhani Jones, Lofa Tatupu and Keith Bulluck (who played with the Giants in 2010).

If the Giants are to overcome this rash of injuries and contend in the NFC East, they may well be best served by signing one (or more) of these stopgap options at linebacker, moving Kiwanuka to defensive end and hoping that Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck return...soon.