Nate Solder returns to a whole new Giants team

Nate Solder isn’t sure how this is going to work out.

Will he start?

"Who cares?" he said.

Will he be able to handle the physical demands of his job at age 33 after a year away from football?

"Lord knows," he said. "I have no idea."

And even though he is back with the Giants (technically he never left the roster), Solder might as well be playing in a new city for a new franchise.

"It’s so different," Solder said of the team he has been practicing with during OTAs and this week’s minicamp compared to the one he last suited up for in 2019.

Since that time, a lot has happened. Solder, a cancer survivor whose young son, Hudson, first underwent his own cancer treatment as an infant, opted out of the 2020 season because of COVID-19 concerns. The Giants have changed head coaches. The roster has been turned over.

Also new? The vibe.

"I love the feel of the guys, I love the way that they are working, I love the way we are covering the details in the meetings," he said. "We are doing so many good things, so it's really neat to be part of it."

Now, 18 months after last playing a game, Solder is back on the field trying to answer all of those questions and get himself reacclimated to the team and the sport.

The one thing he seems certain about in all of it, though, is that he is where he belongs: on a football field, with a football team, getting ready for a football season.

"That's one of the best parts of being in the NFL is the locker room with the guys, the camaraderie, and having a collective goal," he said. "I really did miss that and I'm glad to be back part of that . . . I was excited to come back. I was ready to come back."

It would have been easy for him to stay away. He’s won a couple of Super Bowl rings and signed enough multi-million-dollar contracts in his NFL career to have earned the right to move on with his life. But he wanted this. He even took a substantial pay cut from the Giants to return.

"My mindset was if I can be somewhere where I'm fulfilling my purpose, where I can be around guys that have the same set of values and goals as myself, it's a real honor and it's a privilege to be part of the NFL," he said. "I would say I missed the excitement and fun of being a part of it, so I'm fortunate to be in this position."

Rebuilding the Giants’ offensive line has been a decade-long effort in which several variations have attempted and failed to reinstate the glory of the Super Bowl-winning teams.

In 2018, the Giants were so desperate to fix the problem that they made Solder the highest-paid tackle in the NFL, inserting him at left tackle and pushing Ereck Flowers to the right side. Solder was pegged as the savior of the unit. In 2018-19, he started all 32 games for the Giants, but his play never quite lived up to that contract and he struggled through an injury-riddled 2019 season. The blueprint for that O-line renovation was, like the ones before it, shredded.

In his absence, the Giants tried again. Andrew Thomas took his spot at left tackle as a rookie last year and will remain there this season. Second-year players Matt Peart and Shane Lemieux are penciled in as starters. The only lineman on the team who played consistently with Solder, Will Hernandez, has been shuffled from left guard to the right side. Nick Gates had never played center in his life when he was last on the field with Solder; now he’s the centerpiece of the group and snapped the ball on every offensive play in 2020.

This is the group to which Solder returns, not as the face of the overhaul, as he was three short years ago, but as a spare part. He’s been lining up with the second and third teams at right and left tackle, taking a few reps with the starters on the right side and trying to carve out a niche for himself as either a starter (if Peart can’t keep the job in training camp) or as a swingman who can play in a pinch.

For the first time in his professional career, he’s entering a season without a secure starting job. To that, he shrugs.

"I've been fortunate enough to play with some great O-lines, and nobody cares who is starting and who is not starting," he said. "We're all part of the team and we're all necessary and we're all needed. So if I can encourage, protect, guide, lead and compete, whatever it takes, I'm here to do it."

For a mostly inexperienced group with none of the projected starters older than 25 and none with more than 16 career NFL starts at their presumed positions, that last part may be his most important contribution.

"He's been great with the guys," coach Joe Judge said. "He's obviously an older guy, brings a lot of experience, and he's been a good voice in the room."

Said Gates: "He's a veteran, been in the league 10 years now, and he just brings that knowledge of being in the league for so long. Especially as a young offensive line, I think it helps us tremendously."

Solder has to be able to assist the team on the field, too. Even while he was home and not with the Giants last season, enjoying with his family what he figures was his first fall without football since middle school, he was working on his skills.

"I was in my backyard doing pass sets and I got a weight set down in my basement, stuff like that," he said.

He’s maintained most of the weight needed to handle the defensive linemen he’ll be charged with blocking.

"I'm not too much less than I was before, which is a little bit shocking to me," he said. "But it's good. I'm working hard."

And most of all, the time off gave his body time to heal. The injuries that made him look like a fading veteran whose career was being eroded down to its inevitable end in 2019 have healed.

"I still feel fresh," he said. "I'm as fast and strong as I feel like I have ever been."

Opting out in 2020 left questions about whether Solder would ever play again. It actually might help to prolong his career.

"It was a nice little break and I needed it mentally and physically," he said. "It's a little transition back here into regular life again, but it's nice to get back in the weight room with all the guys and back on the field."

Of that he is most certain.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.