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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -The Giants dodged a major injury scare on Thursday after Nate Solder, their $62 million left tackle, hurt his right leg when he ended up in a pile of bodies on one of the final plays of minicamp - right before rookie guard Will Hernandez and veteran defensive tackle Damon Harrison ended up in a wild fight on the field.
The injury to Solder, though, turned out to be nothing serious after he was examined by doctors on Thursday afternoon. "All good," according to an NFL source.
For a while, that wasn't certain. Giants head coach Pat Shurmur said that after getting an on-field update "I think he's fine." However Solder sounded a little less certain of that after practice, especially since he hadn't been checked out by doctors yet.
The 6-8, 325-pound Solder said someone rolled onto the back of his leg during what was supposed to be a non-contact running play. It wasn't completely clear what happened or who rolled onto him, but Hernandez ended up on the ground right next to him, too.
How the 6-2, 327-pound Hernandez ended up on the ground wasn't clear, either. However, when he did land on the pile, Harrison was standing over him with Hernandez's helmet in his hand. Harrison then swung the helmet in the direction of Hernandez's head, which got Hernandez to pop right up and the two began throwing punches.
The fight was quickly broken up and the two players were separated. Shurmur then had a long, on-field conversation with Harrison as Solder limped off the field and was checked out by trainers.
After practice, Solder didn't have any visible braces or wraps on his leg, nor was he walking with a limp.
As for the fight that happened on the play where Solder got hurt, Shurmur clearly wasn't pleased with it -- especially the part where Harrison swung a helmet at a teammate's head.
"You know what? It's been very competitive the whole camp (but) there's certain things that certainly we can't do," Shurmur said. "So we've got to settle down. In a situation where scuffles break like that we just take them out of the practice and let them cool off."
"Those things are battles. They happen. Emotions rise," Solder added. "You work through it and you move on."