With Running Backs Hurt, Giants Turn to Rookie EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - Leaving the practice field Monday morning, Giants Coach Tom Coughlin was asked about the limited number of running backs he had available during the workout. Coughlin asked. We had one. We're all set. The remaining healthy Giants running back is the rookie Michael Cox, a seventh-round draft pick who was a junior hockey star growing up in Boston and did not play organized football until he was 17. "It was a little strange being the only one out there for practice," Cox said Monday. But I feel like I'm ready to go. They said I'm going to be playing. If he can stay healthy until then, Cox is a near certainty to get the ball when the Giants play the Minnesota Vikings on Monday because so many other Giants running backs are injured. The starting running back David Wilson is out with a neck injury, which will not need surgery, but is likely to keep him out the next three weeks. Andre Brown, who was supposed to share the rushing duties with Wilson, is not scheduled to return from his broken leg until Nov. 10. Da'Rel Scott, waived Oct. 1 and re-signed a week later, has a severe hamstring strain that will not be healed for weeks. And Brandon Jacobs, the new starter, did not practice on Monday, resting a hamstring strain he sustained during his 22 carries in the Giants" loss to the Bears. Coughlin said Jacobs would probably return to practice Thursday - the Giants are off Tuesday and Wednesday - and called his absence precautionary. As for Cox, a 24-year-old drafted out of Massachusetts, Coughlin said he had a good practice. But he also expressed the usual reservations about playing a rookie running back. "He's young," Coughlin said. It's sophisticated, and there are some complex things being thrown at him, particularly in the protection area, so you've got to be careful. He obviously has a lot going, and there are some things right now we feel good about. Cox, 6 feet, 220 pounds, had a strong preseason, impressing the Giants with his speed and his elusiveness. But making quick decisions against regular-season defenses that are more multifaceted than a rookie sees in the preseason will be a challenge for Cox. "There's a lot to understand," Cox said. You have to read the defensive fronts, linebackers and secondary almost like a quarterback. Cox does not have the typical background of a N.F.L. running back. As a youth hockey star, he played at the junior level, a step below professional hockey. But when it came time to dedicate himself to hockey year-round, he enrolled in Avon Old Farms, a Connecticut boarding school where he played his first football game and developed into a top college prospect. Cox played three years at Michigan, where he never won a starting job, then played the 2012 season at Massachusetts, a program that on Saturday gained its second victory in the last two years. But the Giants discovered Cox in the weeks before this year's N.F.L. draft and made him their final selection, which was the second-to-last pick of the draft. NICKS BRUSHES OFF TRADE TALK Wide receiver Hakeem Nicks said he had heard of a news report that N.F.L. teams were planning to contact the Giants to see if they were willing to trade him, but Nicks did not seem worried about leaving the Giants. "I'm not buying into it," Nicks said. I'm sure they got enough respect for me to come and talk to me about a situation like that. It would be common for a general manager of an 0-6 team like the Giants to field inquiries about their most valuable assets, especially a player like Nicks, who can be a free agent at the end of the season. Keeping Nicks next season will cost the Giants at least $10 million a year in salary. At the same time, because he can be a free agent, any team that acquires him would be essentially renting Nicks for the remainder of the season. For that reason, he probably would not command a big return in a trade. Other than acquiring linebacker Jon Beason for a late-round pick last week, the Giants have not made an in-season trade since 1986. The trade deadline is Oct. 29. "I'm a Giant, and I love playing for the Giants," Nicks said. I'm more focused on what we're doing as a team right now to get this thing turned around.