It hasn’t been a very good last few months for Golden Tate. The New York Giants receiver was suspended for four games thanks to taking a drug prescribed at a fertility clinic, one that according to Tate, was given a misleading description by the doctor, and lost his appeal to overturn the suspension. Not only will Tate miss the first four games of the season, though, but he’ll also miss time in training camp.
That’s because of something more recent and entirely unrelated – being placed in concussion protocol after suffering from a concussion against the Chicago Bears, in the second game of the preseason.
Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News guessed that the concussion happened while run blocking for Paul Perkins in the second quarter, however Tate did not exit the game immediately after the incident.
There’s currently no more information on how bad the concussion is, and it’s unknown how much time Tate will miss with it. However, with the team in their third week of training camp, it looks like Tate could miss valuable camp time before his four game suspension begins at the start of the regular season and he’s kept out of game action until week five.
How will Tate play upon his return, after going through an offseason that up to this point has been filled with problems? That remains to be seen, especially as Tate will miss some training camp time that could have been spent learning the Giants offense further thanks to this latest concussion.
The hope, however, is that all of this will soon be a memory in the past as Tate joins Sterling Shepard in the starting lineup, and that the four game suspension and other problems will become an afterthought once the season is going. Will that end up being the case? Only time can tell.