Ehhh... I don't like this.
Not the cleat itself, but the idea that he is impaired enough to require it.
It has to slow him down, or hinder his dexterity to a certain degree
I think that much was evident just from looking at that injury. There was no way that something serious didn't happen.
I see this as a good thing though. I have a feeling the idea behind this isn't so much movement, which should be obvious that will be restricted, but to protect him from ankle tackles, which is the bigger worry. Giants D will attack it.
They wanna try to prevent further injury when grabbed by the ankles and twisted. I would have been more worried if they put him out there without any kind of protection or extra padding.
Yeah it's going to slow him down, but it's not really his speed and shiftiness that we need as much as his size and height. We just want to make sure he draws a big dude to cover him when we need him to, in order to continue creating mismatches. He should still be able to block ok with putting most of the weight on his good foot. Might not even throw him the ball that much. But as long as it still forces the Giants to put someone on him that will create mismatches, that's what we really need.
What we don't want is for them to be able to cover us in man to man. Even if it's only for a couple of plays, but plays that allow us to score, then that's more than enough. He just needs to help us take the lead early on. He won't be much of a factor if it comes down to a close 4th quarter game and we're down or tied.
Ocho's gotta be lacing up for this game.
