This is bad news for the Giants plain and simple.
Nat Berhe has torn one of his calf muscles and is presumed to be out for an unspecified period of time. The prognosis on how long Berhe will be out ranges from a couple of weeks to 3 months. Berhe was expected to step up and be a solid defender in an already struggling secondary.
The Giants expressed how they wanted Berhe to get the first chance to lead the safeties even though he could never unseat Stevie Brown or Quentin Demps as a starter. The Giants safeties coach Dave Merritt stated earlier this offseason the troubles he was having with this current group. Merritt stated
"The chemistry is what I'm really looking for right now, you can't have two cooks in the kitchen. I've had that with my wife and her mom. You can't have both of them in the kitchen. Somebody has to go sit down. So you need to have one leader back there, and that's what I'm still looking for. It's elusive. I'm searching for it. If it's Landon, great. If it's Cooper, great. If it's Nat, great. If it's Mykkele, great. But I need to have a leader come up and emerge out of this minicamp and emerge out of training camp."
Merritt also discussed how the new safeties were developing,
"Very slow, very slow leadership, as far as making calls, controlling the defense. If I give you a call and I tell you, 'These are the checks and this is what I need you to do. If you see this formation, this is what you check to,' the guys right now that I have are very slow at making those checks."
Currently the stable of safeties capable of playing this season is looking really thin.
