The following players appear on the Giants injury report:

LB Michael Boley (hip)

CB Kevin Dockery (hamstring)

CB Aaron Ross (hamstring)

WR Hakeem Nicks (foot)

C Adam Koets (ankle)

LB Clint Sintim (groin)

RB Danny Ware (elbow)

Two players are not on the initial injury report but also not working in practice. They happen to be the two starting safeties. Kenny Phillips sat because of a knee issue and Michael Johnson sat with an undetermined injury. Johnson experienced a neck burner in the game against the Redskins.

Tom Coughlin today sounded optimistic about the health and possible return of several players.

Dockery: “We’re going to push him along and see exactly where he’s at.”

Boley: He will practice today, getting 50 percent of the work.

Sintim: He will practice today, getting 50 percent of the work.

Boley – coming off surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip and a one-game suspension – is expected to make his Giants debut Sunday against the Cowboys but he’ll have to get through a week of practice first. “He does have some things he has to prove,” Coughlin said.

Ross still isn’t close to returning and won’t play this weekend, although he hasn’t officially been ruled out this early in the week.

Newly-signed RB Gartrell Johnson was in uniform and on the practice field. Now comes the fast-forwarding of the learning curve with a new offense. Johnson, a rookie from Colorado State, was a fourth-round draft pick of the Chargers before he was waived hours before the season opener against the Raiders. The Giants claimed him off waivers.

“He’ll have a role,” Coughlin said. “We’ll segment things and make a little package that he’ll have to know what to do. He’ll have to be ready to go.”

This is the first time the Giants will play in Cowboys Stadium – it’s the first regular-season game ever played at the new $1.2 billion football palace – and some coaches when they’re on the road in these situations like to bring their team to the new venue on Saturday to check it out.

“I thought about that but I don’t think so,” Coughlin said. “It’s a long ride.”

The new stadium is in Arlington; the Giants team hotel is near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

***

The Giants added offensive lineman Jacob Bender to their practice squad. Bender was a 2007 sixth-round draft pick of the Jets out of Nicholls State.