If you had any doubts that rookie running back David Wilson being the biggest story on the Giants after his three touchdowns against the Saints last Sunday, they were put to rest when the Thursday papers went to press.
It doesn't really matter which paper you read with your coffee or at your desk when you're supposed to be working because all of them have variations on the same Wilson story. Members of the Giants are concerned that Wilson's going to hurt himself if he continues to celebrate his touchdowns with a backflip.
Justin Tuck said he's told Wilson several times to save it for YouTube, Tom Coughlin refused to comment about them without giving much indication he's a fan and Wilson said that Jerry Reese said he can keep doing it as long as he doesn't get hurt. Eli Manning, who doesn't seem to worry about a thing, is the only Giant quoted who thinks it's just fine that Wilson keeps doing it.
We imagine he's not the only one, although you can understand keeping quiet in the face of such a full court press on the other side of such a meaningful issue. After all, Wilson scored three touchdowns last week so he's clearly going to be scoring that much every week.
We're also waiting for the "won't someone think of the children" style slams of all the NFL players who dunk the ball over the crossbar when they score touchdowns. They could roll their ankle after landing, after all, and that might wind up knocking them out just as easily as Wilson could hurt himself by failing to complete the backflip.
Injury concerns are somewhat reasonable, even if Wilson is just as reasonably telling everyone to "relax" about something he's been doing for 20 years without incident. Concerns raised by Gary Myers of the Daily News, however, are patently ridiculous.
Myers touches on the injury issue, but he really thinks Wilson should stop doing backflips because they anger opponents who think they are being shown up by the celebration. Per Myers, such defenders are going to be more likely to dish out cheap shots to Wilson than they would if he had a less exuberant way of marking his touchdowns.
We got to wondering what kind of touchdown celebration might meet with Myers' approval. Something understated like doing a salsa dance while your home stadium (and certain television networks) blast salsa music to accompany your moves would obviously be out, right?
Wrong, unless we missed Myers' long screed about how awful it is that Victor Cruz shows up defenses by dancing all over the end zone when he scores a touchdown. We're still waiting for that cheap shot against Cruz, one that won't come since years of watching touchdown celebrations have pretty much made everyone other than crotchety commentators just fine with it.
You know what actually is insulting to Giants opponents, though? Assuming that three touchdowns against a bad team is somehow predictive enough of how the rest of Wilson's season will go rather than using the 12 weeks where he was barely a factor as a guide for how things will play out when the Giants play against defenses that understand stopping the offense is their goal.
If the Giants are fortunate enough to keep getting touchdowns from Wilson, how he celebrates them should be of as much concern to them as the price of coffee in Istanbul.
Josh Alper is also a writer for Pro Football Talk. You can follow him on Twitter.
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