Chris Snee had never had a concussion before in his career. His only reference points had been headaches. So when he suffered a concussion in the Week 5 loss against the Seattle Seahawks, the symptoms were all new for the Giants' right guard.

Having watched the film enough times, Snee remembers what happened. He took a hit early on in the game that was the initial shock. He then took another hit later on that proved to be the tipping point. He remembers almost falling over and grabbing onto a referee for leverage.

“It was scary to think that you’re going to pass out on the field,” he said. “The headaches and the week of fog that I was in was not fun. But I got cleared and I’m ready to go again.”

Snee returned to practice yesterday for the first time since that game. He passed his concussion tests last week and has been headache free for a week. The concussion that left him too unfit to drive home after the game — needing to take an ambulance afterward — also forced the Giants to scramble their offensive line again for the following week against Buffalo.

Now, rested and back to health after a bye week, the Giants have regained something that has been unfamiliar to them as of late: an offensive line in place with all five starters. And just in time as the Miami Dolphins come in fresh off a seven-sack performance Sunday against the Denver Broncos.

“It’ll be a good thing,” said coach Tom Coughlin, also Snee’s father-in-law.

Continuity on the offensive line has not be easy to achieve for the Giants. The shortened offseason meant center David Baas was signed in late July. That gave less time to mesh a unit that also was impacted by David Diehl’s move inside from left tackle to left guard and Will Beatty’s insertion at left tackle.

Baas then went down midway through the Week 4 victory against the Cardinals. When he returned for the Buffalo game, Snee was out. Kevin Boothe filled in for each in successive weeks. Now the line is happy to be back together.

Snee is “a key part of our offensive line,” Baas said. “Give credit to Boothe, he’s done a tremendous job stepping in there whether he was called to play center or guard. He does a great job every time he’s in there. But, of course, we love having Snee back in there.”

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The results so far for the unit have been varied. Eli Manning is having one of the best years of his career, and the line has given up 14 sacks, which is middle of the pack in the league. The rushing game, however, has been stymied. The Giants are second-to-last in the NFL with 3.3 yards per carry and are third-to-last in the league in yards per game (90.2). There was an upward tick in their last game as Ahmad Bradshaw rushed for 104 yards and three touchdowns.

Just because the offensive line is all in place again does not mean that it will be simple to just jump back into the fray.

“It’s a constant process, it really is,” Baas said. “Especially because guys have been here forever, you just can’t jump in and expect everything to be perfect. The only thing you can do is get a little better each week and I feel like we’re doing that. Buffalo was just a step. Not what we can do, we can do better than that. The biggest thing is the more and more we get to work together, the better we can get. Getting Chris back, we can work together.”

Mike Vorkunov: mvorkunov@starledger.com