Don’t know whether center Shaun O’Hara can come back in time for Tampa from his sprained left MCL. But he told Sirius Radio that he’s going to give it a try and that the extra day between now and Sunday’s game might help.

Here’s the transcript of what he told hosts Vic Carucci (a heck of a nice guy and a friend for years, by the way) and Randy Cross.

“Well, I think that you know that as offensive linemen we’re never really injured, we’re just hurt. The knee is pretty sore. I got looked at yesterday and it doesn’t seem to be anything too threatening so I’m just kind of on a day-to-day basis right now. The first couple of days after the game you are always the most sore anytime you tweak anything so we’ll just have to wait and see. We found out that we’ll be playing on Sunday at 1:00pm so that actually gives me a little more time so I’m hoping that everything works out.”

As to whether O’Hara thought Tom Coughlin’s idea of sticking with the starters the whole Patriots game was wise, O’Hara was non-commital. However, it’s worth noting he got hurt in the second quarter, when he probably would have been in there, anyway.

“Well, I think that that is a selfish mind-set for me to just say, ‘You know what, it’s all about me.’ I think that after watching the Redskins-Cowboys game and seeing how the Cowboys tried to rest some guys and kind of went in there and just kind of played sloppy, I don’t think that would have been good for our team.

“Obviously, the biggest factor right now, and really for the whole season is how do we respond now after this game, how do we respond with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game? Because if we go down there and we do not win that game then everybody is going to second guess what we did against New England. And that’s really the biggest factor in my eyes is going down there and trying to get that win.

“If we can win that game then we’ll all come out smelling like roses. Obviously, no player wanted to get hurt and any time anybody went down in that game against the Patriots we all kind of held our breath hoping that they were going to get up. It is part of the game. You have to kind of roll with the punches when they do happen but as a competitor I don’t really think that I can sit back and say, ‘Man, I wish we didn’t go after those guys.”

O’Hara said his goal is to get back to practice Wednesday, but not necessarily to take every snap in every drill. He said he can get by with limited practice.

“Really, I’m going to have to take it day-by-day but I think at this point in the season I don’t necessarily need to take every single rep to feel comfortable to go. So I think that later on down the week we’ll be able to make a decision.”

Ciao for now.