EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The Giants’ all-time leading receiver, Amani Toomer, will miss the rest of the season because of an injured left knee.

Toomer, the team’s co-leader with 32 catches this year, felt a pain in his knee Sunday and came to the sidelines briefly in the 14–10 win over Houston. He later returned and finished the game.

An MRI on Monday night showed that Toomer had a partial tear of his anterior cruciate ligament. He has elected to have season-ending surgery but did not specify when that would take place.

“I didn’t think anything of it,” Toomer said of the injury. “It was very disappointing when I got the MRI.”

Toomer had a similar injury to his right knee as a rookie 10 years ago.

The injury is the latest for the Giants in recent weeks. Linebacker LaVar Arrington was lost for the season with an Achilles’ injury against Dallas on October 23 and Pro Bowl defensive end Michael Strahan is going to be sidelined for 2 to 8 weeks with a sprained right foot.

The Giants have played without All Pro defensive end Osi Umenyiora (hip), cornerback Sam Madison (hamstring) and linebacker Brandon Short (quad) in recent weeks. All are starters.

The Giants (6–2) are scheduled to meet the Chicago Bears (7–1) in a showdown for the NFC lead here Sunday night.

Toomer was given the option of trying to rehab the knee, but he was worried about the potential for further injury.

“It’s unstable at this point,” Toomer said. “I just want to fix it. I don’t want to get into the specifics of what happened, but I feel like the best thing to do is to get it fixed. Going out there and not being able to perform to the best of my ability is worse than getting it fixed now and taking the time” for it to heal.