The Giants’ Andrew Thomas question

October 29, 2020

Who is that stiff out at LT and what have you done with our #1 pick? That’s the question we’ve been getting on a regular basis in the past few days from frustrated Giants’ fans wondering WTF is going on with Andrew Thomas, their #1 pick – with the 4th selection overall – at the 2020 draft who has not played at all well so far this season. Worse, it seems Thomas’ struggles get more pronounced with each passing week. The corollary to the question is ‘how could the Giants’ scouts and/or management messed up so badly with such a high pick. What were they watching on tape?’

So like any good analyst we went back to the tape and watched several of Thomas’ games at Georgia. Truth be told he just doesn’t look like the same guy. And what you see on Thomas’ UGA tape is a guy who wasn’t necessarily a great athlete playing LT, but he was a solid technician who effectively kept his side of the pocket clean, while he played with a bit of a nasty streak, especially in the run game. At Georgia, Thomas had a nice quiet, easy slide-step, played with good balance and body control, had a strong punch, and used his long arms effectively to control the defender in front of him.

In contrast, you haven’t seen much of that at all with the Giants. Thomas has been almost clunky in his back-peddle and has been settling too deep in the pocket. He also just hasn’t been getting any arm extension at all and instead has been letting defenders get into his pads way too easily. Rather than initiating contact and controlling the play, Thomas has been trying to absorb contact with his body and that’s going to be a tough gig for any OL.

The temptation is to blame the OL coaches, but if one watches Matt Peart one sees a guy who is playing the way Thomas did at Georgia. Indeed, its an interesting note that Peart and Thomas had the two longest reaches of any of the OL in Indianapolis at the combine this winter. Anybody who’s ever played sports knows that every once in a while you panic a bit when things aren’t going great you panic a bit, let your technique slide, and try to get by just trying harder. The trick is to take a deep breath and maybe a step back and see if you can just start playing within yourself again. Let’s hope something like that is the case with Thomas.