NFL Draft: Giants select Kayvon Thibodeaux at No. 5 overall, Evan Neal at No. 7
Kayvon Thibodeaux poses onstage after being selected fifth by the Giants during round one of the 2022 NFL Draft on April 28, 2022 in Las Vegas. Credit: Getty Images/David Becker
The Giants got an edge with an edge and they couldn’t be happier.
Kayvon Thibodeaux, one of the biggest personalities in this year’s draft, was selected by the team with the fifth overall pick on Thursday. The outside linebacker from Oregon will be arriving on a self-propelled thunderbolt of hype and bluster. Although that might have turned off some teams, the Giants were confident enough in the off-field research they did on him which included everything from a Combine interview during which they teased him about how he might handle a lack of immediate success to a trip to a Korean barbecue restaurant in Eugene before his pro day to a FaceTime conversation earlier this week.
"We got to know him more than probably any player in this draft,” general manager Joe Schoen said of the process.
The more the learned, the more they liked.
“One on one, when (Brian Daboll) and I met with him on his visit, he was very calm, cool and collected,” Schoen said. “When he’s out and about in front of you guys (in the media) you might see a little more personality from him but all in all a good kid.”
Thibodeaux liked what he learned about the Giants, too. And he loves the idea of coming to the biggest market in the country after spending the last few years shrouded in the Northwest corner.
“"I'm hungry,” he said. “I'm really competitive and I'm hungry. And I feel like New York is the pinnacle of a dog-eat-dog world."
The Giants got a pretty good player, too. Thibodeaux comes to a team that hasn’t produced a bone fide homegrown edge rusher since it drafted Jason Pierre-Paul in 2010. He posted 9.0 sacks as a freshman in 2019, 3.0 in 2020 and 7.0 last season despite missing games with an ankle injury. Now he’ll be playing opposite last year’s second-round pick, Azeez Ojulari, in the schemes drawn up by new defensive coordinator Don “Wink” Martindale.
The Giants had to wait to see who they would select based upon the first four picks, including the one made by the Jets directly ahead of them. They took cornerback Sauce Gardner, believed to be the most coveted player by the Giants.
But with all three of the top offensive tackles on the board the Giants sprinted to pick Thibodeaux knowing that with the seventh overall pick they would be able to get at least their second favorite lineman. After Carolina selected Ikem Ekwonu from North Carolina State with the sixth overall pick and the first offensive player of the draft, the Giants took Evan Neal from Alabama. Schoen said the Giants had Ekwonu and Neal “side-by-side” on their board and suggested they had them both above Thibodeaux on their list of the six players he said they “coveted,” but when the draft played out the way it did they chose Thibodeaux first.
Neal, a powerful man, was considered to be a candidate for the first overall pick as recently as the Combine. Schoen said he will start his career with the Giants competing at right tackle with Andrew Thomas entrenched at left tackle. Neal played that position for one season in college.
“It helps when you get to see him do what you’re going to ask him to do,” Schoen said.
If the name of the game in today’s NFL is getting after and protecting the quarterback, the Giants were able to improve their chances at both in the matter of a half hour.
“We’re ecstatic in the two players we got,” Schoen said.
And, in the case of Thibodeaux, comfortable with all that comes with him.
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.
