Head Coach Eric Mangini announced during his morning press conference that Jonathan Vilma will not practice today.

Vilma underwent a series of tests yesterday after suffering a knee injury during Sunday’s Bengals’ game.

Mangini borrowed quotes from his early-in-the-season press conferences when Chad Pennington was hurt and said only that they are treating this injury like any other injury and evaluating it every day. In other words, no concrete information is being disclosed. 

Vilma stated on his weekly radio show on WFAN that he wasn’t hurt on Sunday and it was the coach’s decision to take him out. Mangini agreed that it was his decision to take him out, saying that he felt the injury was detracting from his performance and that’s why he substituted for him.

Today’s poor weather is a perfect excuse to keep Vilma off the wet turf and rest his knee one more day. His presence or absence from tomorrow’s practice will say a lot about the extent of his injury. Clearly from all the quotes, player and coach don’t agree on the severity of the injury.

Mangini said in his press conference:

“Jonathan is very tough. The injury was based on the game.”

Translation: he was playing so poorly that he must have been injured (hopefully).

Stay tuned.

Jon Buzby is a nationally-syndicated columnist who can be reached at www.jonbuzby.com.