A close friend of mine covers the Falcons for the AJC and formerly covered Georgia for another paper. Prior to the draft he told me he thought Andrew Thomas would be Jake Matthews - what he termed "solid." Solid would be fine. I texted him last night in the midst of another disastrous game for Thomas and this was his response.
"He'll be fine. He'll work with Kynan Forney this offseason and be straight."
Apparently Forney is a former NFL offensive lineman who worked with Thomas prior to the draft. He has also worked with Falcons 2nd year OT Kaleb McGary. My friend said Mcgary had a terrible rookie season and apparently has been much, much better this season.
Just grasping for silver linings, yet again.
I know I keep mentioning that, but it was in his review and it seems prophetic.
Do you think he will do anything different that Colombo - a real NFL player and a real NFL coach isn't doing? His point was the guy will continue to work with Thomas in the off season when players are not with the team..
Even some outstanding LT's started at RT and I think the Jonathan Ogden started at guard.
Right now he is shell shocked and has no confidence. Hopefully this somewhat long break gives him a breather to settle down.
No offense but, I think this line of thinking just doesn't fit todays NFL. Teams don't stack the best at RDE or ROLB anymore, they are all over. It didn't matter who was rushing against Thomas they all got through. He hasn't shown one solid trait to his game!
That was 2013. In 2018 he made the Pro Bowl. In 2019 they won a Super Bowl. Has he lived up to being the first overall pick in the draft? Probably not, but he wasn't a bust and I don't believe for a second that Andrew Thomas will be a bust. It's tough enough to start at left tackle as a rookie, let alone trying to accomplish that with no minicamps, no OTAs, a minimalist training camp, and no preseason games.
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But it seems more appropriate here. In Thomas we have a rookie OT, who (due to Covid) didn't get a full off-season, is being asked to start at the most difficult position on the OL, and is being asked to go against other teams' best ER every week. As with most OTs, he probably would have benefited from cutting his teeth at RT or one of the OGs. I believe with Thomas we have a way to go before we know what we have; certainly more than 6 or 7 games. He has all the tools you want to see in a LT, and the Giants have a good OL coach; time will tell.
No offense but, I think this line of thinking just doesn't fit todays NFL. Teams don't stack the best at RDE or ROLB anymore, they are all over. It didn't matter who was rushing against Thomas they all got through. He hasn't shown one solid trait to his game!
They didn’t even stack it back then; just look at the Giants with Michael Strahan.
It might help AT that we don't play again until Monday 11/2.
2. I will however say that I'm not sure Gettleman got the pick wrong (and I am still something of a Gettleman supporter). The value of Thomas was supposed to be the best mix of upside and 'ready' in the draft. Becton and Wirfs were supposed to be the project guys. So the fact that Thomas is struggling out of the gate negates a big reason he was drafted where he was drafted.
That said, if he cleans it up and turns into a good one it won't matter.
those tackles taken after him in the draft have the same situations and are outperforming him.
at this point in both of their careers flowers had a better rating so you should apologize to him...lol.
I agree we'd settle for not a disaster right now. Which is a low bar, but it's also reasonable to set our expectations that this is basically a learning season for Thomas, after a weird and aborted rookie spring and preseason.
Appreciate the OP sharing that chatter. I do have better faith in this coaching staff's ability to coach guys like Thomas into better players over time
He’s getting beat every week the same way. His technique sucks and has always sucked.
People here seem to think the way a guy has played his entire life is easy to change and only takes time. You can’t just coach a guy out of 10 years of habits. This is the same shit we saw with Flowers, it’s just be are reluctant to call it out because he’s a rookie and not an asshole like Flowers.
Blew a huge gaping hole in this entire franchise.
Plays like Ereck Flowers.
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But it seems more appropriate here. In Thomas we have a rookie OT, who (due to Covid) didn't get a full off-season, is being asked to start at the most difficult position on the OL, and is being asked to go against other teams' best ER every week. As with most OTs, he probably would have benefited from cutting his teeth at RT or one of the OGs. I believe with Thomas we have a way to go before we know what we have; certainly more than 6 or 7 games. He has all the tools you want to see in a LT, and the Giants have a good OL coach; time will tell.
He’s getting beat every week the same way. His technique sucks and has always sucked.
People here seem to think the way a guy has played his entire life is easy to change and only takes time. You can’t just coach a guy out of 10 years of habits. This is the same shit we saw with Flowers, it’s just be are reluctant to call it out because he’s a rookie and not an asshole like Flowers.
Its more like that this is because Thomas was a significantly better college player than Thomas.
Any bad tackle is now going to be called "Flowers" because that's the most recent failure. Guy gets beat? Flowers.
Flowers was always what he was. A low technique musclehead playing Tackle and good at it because he was freakishly strong when playing non-nfl talent. And not interested in learning anything to do his job better.
The Dolphins are also starting two additional rookies on their OL that seem to be performing well.
If he wasn't ready to start in the NFL in Year One, he didn't merit the #4 selection.
Fourth out of 4 OTs on most pre-Draft Boards. And we made him the first OT off the Board.
This is how the losing continues year after year after year.
I’m not even asking for a good O line. But one of these seasons can they at least have an average one? Every year it’s the same train wreck.
I know I keep mentioning that, but it was in his review and it seems prophetic.
Along these lines, it is why I have been repeatedly calling for Lemieux and Peart to start. We realy need to see them get significant snaps the rest of the way because neither can literally play any worse than their counterparts. A few weeks ago, for Peart, that meant only Fleming. Now, that includes Thomas. At this point, if Peart looks good at LT and they moved Thomas to RT and it worked out, I'm fine with that. But, we really needed at least 2 of those 3 guys to pan out by next season away and long term. We need to know what we have in those 3.
The good news on the OL is Gates at least seems to be getting a little better each week.
Not quite sure I understand what you mean by "picked at 4 or less"
But....Becton and Wills...