Were Giants able to fix offensive line in this draft?
New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen, left, and head coach Brian Daboll, introduce NFL football draft pick Evan Neal during press a conference in East Rutherford, N.J. on Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray) Credit: AP
Was Joe Schoen able to do in one offseason what has befuddled at least two Giants general managers, four head coaches, and countless position coaches for more than a decade? Was he able to fix the offensive line?
Probably not completely. Not yet.
But he has seemingly stabilized the group with an influx of veterans in free agency and added to the developmental side of the position through the draft to the point where he was able to at least muster a somewhat optimistic “I hope so” to that aforementioned question which has been at the crux of the team’s recent misery.
Noting the players haven’t even been in pads yet this offseason, Schoen said: “I feel like we’ve upgraded it from when I got here and we had only four or five offensive linemen on the roster… We could potentially be operating from a position of strength at that position.”
That’s a far cry from anything the Giants have had in a long time going back to their Super Bowl-winning teams in 2007 and 2011. Since then the team’s inability to reload and rebuild the group up front has been the stated priority of each regime yet none have been able to accomplish it.
It was a priority for Schoen and Daboll, too, in their first time through the draft and free agency. They used three draft picks on the position, one on each day of the process, selecting Evan Neal with the seventh overall pick on Thursday, Josh Ezeudu in the third round on Friday, and Markus McKethan in the fifth round on Saturday. Those players along with the six veterans they added in the weeks prior at the very least give them a functionable number of bodies, something they didn’t even have two months ago.
The Giants also think they’re better than the ones that the most recent rosters were saddled with.
“I know the guys are hard-working, smart, they show some toughness when you watch them on tape,” Daboll said of the additions. “The people we have in the building are dependable…. They’re eager.”
Despite the allocation of resources, the line remains a work in progress. While Neal will almost certainly be starting in Week 1 and likely at right tackle opposite 2020 first-round pick Andrew Thomas at left tackle, the two other players drafted this year will have to grow into such a role. That seems to be fine with Schoen and Daboll since it mirrors what they did in Buffalo when they overhauled the Bills’ line not by lavish spending in free agency or very high draft picks but by smartly finding young players and developing them.
“We have a really good coaching staff,” Schoen said. “X’s and O’s are very important for a coach but also developing players. (Offensive line coach) Bobby Johnson has a very good track record from my time with him, as does Dabes. You bring guys in who are wired the right way and have traits and it’s all hands on deck in terms of developing those guys.”
Schoen noted that there is always a reason why players are drafted in later rounds.
“Nobody is perfect,” he said. “The best we can do in terms of developing those guys is accentuate their strengths and let the coaching staff do their thing.”
Schoen did his thing. It wasn’t always flashy. It was mostly with cheap one-year veteran contracts and later-round picks. But compared to what the Giants have had, it’s cause for the one thing that has eluded the Giants’ offensive line as much as yards and wins have.
There’s hope.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
