Things may be getting better with the draft picks, but Jones is still an unknown and this year may be his make/break season and Thomas appears to be yet another first round bust at LT.
Granted it's always a guessing game, but why are many other teams so much better at guessing than the G-Men? Compare what the Giants have done in the past 5 years compared to KC, TB, GB, Pit, CLE and even the bitch-boys. Is it impossible to find a decent/great GM?
2015- (7 picks) Why bother...
not one player still on the team
2016- (6 picks) 1 starter; 1 out of 6 still on team
2nd round Sterling Shepard only starter and only one still on the team
2017- (7 picks) 2 starters; 3 out of 7 still on team
1st round Engram, 2nd round D Tomlinson starters; Gallman still on team
2018- (5 picks) 2 starters; all 5 still on team
1st round Barkley, 3rd round Carter, only two starters; Hernandez, Hill, McIntosh still on team
2019- (10 picks) 3 starters; 4 out of 10 still on team
1st round Jones, D Lawrence, 5th round D Slayton only starters; Love only other player still on team
2020- (10 picks) 3 starters; 7 out of 10 still on team
1st round Thomas, 5th round Lemieux, 7th round Crowder starters; McKinney, Peart, Brown, Coughlin, still on team
Every coaching staff brings in their own guys....
not sure how you are counting but who are not on roster from 2020 draft? Most of the udfa are also still on roster.
But yes....the Giant can do much better in draft
and Thomas appears to be yet another first round bust at LT.
I stopped reading after this
Quote:
and Thomas appears to be yet another first round bust at LT.
I stopped reading after this
Are you saying Thomas was good?
First, understand that he has only been the general manager since 2018. You can’t blame him for anything prior to that.
To come away with 8 starters (and I think it may actually be more than that) in 3 years is actually pretty good.
Calling Thomas “another bust” is just flat out incorrect.
Also, look at free agency and not just the draft. He signed/acquired Martinez, Bradberry, L. Williams, and Peppers who are major contributors to this team.
He found Nick Gates, who seems to be an undrafted gem.
I’m not going to analyze every transaction, but understand that no GM is perfect. Gettleman certainly isn’t. But it looks like (hopefully) this team may have turned a corner.
I also know this sounds stupid but one of the worst things Flowers did entering the league was using his dad as his agent. Agents do a lot for players well beyond negotiating their first contracts. With the new rookie structures to salary there is little to negotiate so players don't want to pay an agent for that. It makes sense if that is all you think an agent does. Imo, Flowers would have gotten much better advice if he hired an agent on how the NFL works, what it takes to succeed, and had connections for people Flowers could train with. None of that happened and it is reasons like that where Flowers fell short.
Now, lets look at Thomas. They had similar rookie years. Both played LT, both underperformed, and both had injuries. It is easy to look on the surface and say that they were similar and, therefore, headed for a similar trajectory. I disagree. Thomas had pretty good technique coming into 5he league. He has things he has to clean up as he admittedly said his hands need work but there is a foundation. Secondly, he is very coachable unlike the stories we heard about Flowers. Third, Judge is holding players accountable. Fourth, Thomas works his tail off but not in a similar way to what we heard from Flowers. Thomas is a student of the game and along with his physical training it seems that he is very focused on film study as well.
Imo, Thomas showed a lot of promise this year, which in a world of instant results may get overlooked. He had some very poor games but also had some very good games. That volatility tells me he is going to be fine IF, and this is a big IF, he continues to work his tail off and take to coaching. For Thomas I think the injury can be a legit reason for his struggles whereas with Flowers there was more to it than the injury he had his rookie year.
I'm very bullish on Thomas.
How many OTs were drafted in the top 10 since 2015 and who were they?
How many were pushed into LT in their rookie year?
How many were considered successful at it as a rookie?
I've already done it and know better than to even consider calling Andrew Thomas a bust. In fact, I'm very optimistic about our LT situation going forward.
First, understand that he has only been the general manager since 2018. You can’t blame him for anything prior to that.
To come away with 8 starters (and I think it may actually be more than that) in 3 years is actually pretty good.
Calling Thomas “another bust” is just flat out incorrect.
Also, look at free agency and not just the draft. He signed/acquired Martinez, Bradberry, L. Williams, and Peppers who are major contributors to this team.
He found Nick Gates, who seems to be an undrafted gem.
I’m not going to analyze every transaction, but understand that no GM is perfect. Gettleman certainly isn’t. But it looks like (hopefully) this team may have turned a corner.
Actually 8 starts in three years is fairly average. And When you factor they have been picking top 6 ever year and one year they had 3 first round picks (so that's 5 first round picks and 3 high second round picks) its really not that impressive.
To me it looks like all of the teams that started out about where the Giants were three years ago are in a better position than where the Giants are now. I do not think the talent disparity is shrinking around the league. My personal opinion obviously, but
Franchise QB? maybe
Franchise DE/pass rusher? No
Franchise CB? Yes (paid for him)
Franchise WR? No
Franchise LT? Maybe.
We will see but if there was a "wins above replacement GM stat" based on the expected return of draft position I still think we would be below average.
Hoping for better though
I have hopes for Thomas and he may be ok or better but he was not the best choice and Gettleman could have done better or at least traded down if he wanted Thomas. He made the same mistake with Jones but that’s a different subject.
You are obviously just looking for reactions to that and the inevitable arguments that feed from it.
Good luck with it.
Great thread otherwise though, very insightful and thought provoking. Love the fresh new takes I’ve never read before too!
Did ANYONE say that? We were ONLY referring to the bust part. Not sure where you equated had some good production with the bad production with taking a posture of bust.
I have hopes for Thomas and he may be ok or better but he was not the best choice and Gettleman could have done better or at least traded down if he wanted Thomas. He made the same mistake with Jones but that’s a different subject.
Wills had a lower PFF agrade and committed something like 11 penalties. Thomas was much better than him after a rough start.
Quote:
But there were 4 OTs available and he was the first taken. Based on performance this year, he’s not as good as Wills or Becton or Wirfs. In fact, his rookie season was not even close to as good as any of them. And, while he improved in the 2nd half, he got destroyed in the Arizona game giving up 6 sacks to a decent edge player but no as star. And don’t mention that Wirfs played RT only. Wirfs wasn’t just a good rookie RT; he was one of the best RTs in the league. The Tampa OL didn’t make him, he made them much better.
I have hopes for Thomas and he may be ok or better but he was not the best choice and Gettleman could have done better or at least traded down if he wanted Thomas. He made the same mistake with Jones but that’s a different subject.
Wills had a lower PFF agrade and committed something like 11 penalties. Thomas was much better than him after a rough start.
Thomas did give up more than twice as many sacks.
Quote:
But let's not act like he had a great season.
Did ANYONE say that? We were ONLY referring to the bust part. Not sure where you equated had some good production with the bad production with taking a posture of bust.
Be honest. You're not saying Thomas is an unknown. You're saying he's going to be a good player. That hasn't been shown yet.
Not that I'm giving up on a first round pick after a shitty shortened offseason. But, Thomas didn't have a promising rookie season imho.
Quote:
In comment 15152580 Samiam said:
Quote:
But there were 4 OTs available and he was the first taken. Based on performance this year, he’s not as good as Wills or Becton or Wirfs. In fact, his rookie season was not even close to as good as any of them. And, while he improved in the 2nd half, he got destroyed in the Arizona game giving up 6 sacks to a decent edge player but no as star. And don’t mention that Wirfs played RT only. Wirfs wasn’t just a good rookie RT; he was one of the best RTs in the league. The Tampa OL didn’t make him, he made them much better.
I have hopes for Thomas and he may be ok or better but he was not the best choice and Gettleman could have done better or at least traded down if he wanted Thomas. He made the same mistake with Jones but that’s a different subject.
Wills had a lower PFF agrade and committed something like 11 penalties. Thomas was much better than him after a rough start.
Thomas did give up more than twice as many sacks.
And he committed 4 times as many penalties.
Quote:
In comment 15152546 adamg said:
Quote:
But let's not act like he had a great season.
Did ANYONE say that? We were ONLY referring to the bust part. Not sure where you equated had some good production with the bad production with taking a posture of bust.
Be honest. You're not saying Thomas is an unknown. You're saying he's going to be a good player. That hasn't been shown yet.
Not that I'm giving up on a first round pick after a shitty shortened offseason. But, Thomas didn't have a promising rookie season imho.
That I think he’ll be good or you don’t is an opinion that remains to be seen. He was highly regarded (I don’t watch college) by those evaluators I tend to trust. Hopefully the new OL coach will be better than what he had..
Round (Selection): 1 (4th)
What went wrong in 2020: Thomas slotted in second-to-last in pass-blocking grade among left tackles in 2020. He gave up 14 more pressures (57) than any left tackle in the league and also surrendered more sacks (10) than anyone at the position. Thomas allowed four or more pressures in over half of his games this season. Early on in the season, he was getting impatient and would immediately pop out of his stance. The fourth overall pick overall had exceptionally poor timing, and that led to a lot of lost reps.
Why they are going to break out in 2021: Things did take a turn for the better for Thomas in the middle of the year. While he was still imperfect, we weren’t seeing him extend on his punch in pass protection as often as he was before. He was more patient with it. That played a significant part in his pass-blocking grade jumping from 45.3 through Week 7 to 63.5 from Week 8 on.
And for those concerned about the lofty pressure total Thomas gave up in Year 1, not every quality pass-protecting tackle in the NFL came out and had a hot start to their NFL career.
LT Andrew Thomas
NYG 2020 4th overall pick
Stat
RT Lane Johnson
PHI 2013 4th overall pick
10 Sacks 10
8 Hits 8
39 Hurries 39
57 Total pressures 57
615 Pass-block snaps 620
Just as PFF's Ben Linsey wrote, the Giants would have taken Wirfs 10 times out of 10 knowing what they know now. At the end of the day, though, all is not lost with the former Georgia Bulldog. He is still more than capable of climbing out of the hole he dug himself after his notable improvement in the middle of the 2020 campaign.
Compare him to Lane Johnson - ( New Window )
Thinking Thomas will be good isn’t blind optimism. Did you watch the second half of the season, particularly after Colombo’s exit?
He had a rough start. His pass blocking sets were off, due to an O-Line coach that changed his approached. After he went back to his approach from Georgia he performed a ton better. He started showing why the Giants chose him as the No. 4 overall pick.
Like if you look at the Bucs in the past 3 years, they've drafted:
Vita Vea
Carlton Davis
Alex Cappa
Jordan Whitehead
Devin White
Jamel Dean
Tristan Wirfs
Antoine Winfield
All are impactful starters
After three years of drafting, all DG can say is there's a bunch of players who could still turn out to be impactful.
Quote:
I'm rooting for him. But I'm not going to be blindly optimistic. I do think if he has the goods, Judge will get it out of him.
Thinking Thomas will be good isn’t blind optimism. Did you watch the second half of the season, particularly after Colombo’s exit?
I do take Sy's point about the OL seriously though. I hope DG makes moves to improve it, even if we're penciling in Thomas as one of the pieces moving forward. I think he still has some proving to do. That's all. I'm not opposed to moving him to the right side, if we can get another LT option that is better.
Like if you look at the Bucs in the past 3 years, they've drafted:
Vita Vea
Carlton Davis
Alex Cappa
Jordan Whitehead
Devin White
Jamel Dean
Tristan Wirfs
Antoine Winfield
All are impactful starters
After three years of drafting, all DG can say is there's a bunch of players who could still turn out to be impactful.
Barkley had one of the best, if not the best RB rookie year ever. He was hampered most of ‘19 by his HAS even though he tried to gamely play on it towards the end but clearly couldn’t cut/pivot, etc as he normally did. We know about ‘20..So, SB was impactful when healthy..Obviously, if he doesn’t recover the way we’d like, is impactful days would most likely be over, imo.
Like if you look at the Bucs in the past 3 years, they've drafted:
Vita Vea
Carlton Davis
Alex Cappa
Jordan Whitehead
Devin White
Jamel Dean
Tristan Wirfs
Antoine Winfield
All are impactful starters
After three years of drafting, all DG can say is there's a bunch of players who could still turn out to be impactful.
Dexter Lawrence was impactful, imv. McKinney was injured. Let me think about others. I’m blanking at the moment...😎
Quote:
and Thomas appears to be yet another first round bust at LT.
I stopped reading after this
I also know this sounds stupid but one of the worst things Flowers did entering the league was using his dad as his agent. Agents do a lot for players well beyond negotiating their first contracts. With the new rookie structures to salary there is little to negotiate so players don't want to pay an agent for that. It makes sense if that is all you think an agent does. Imo, Flowers would have gotten much better advice if he hired an agent on how the NFL works, what it takes to succeed, and had connections for people Flowers could train with. None of that happened and it is reasons like that where Flowers fell short.
Now, lets look at Thomas. They had similar rookie years. Both played LT, both underperformed, and both had injuries. It is easy to look on the surface and say that they were similar and, therefore, headed for a similar trajectory. I disagree. Thomas had pretty good technique coming into 5he league. He has things he has to clean up as he admittedly said his hands need work but there is a foundation. Secondly, he is very coachable unlike the stories we heard about Flowers. Third, Judge is holding players accountable. Fourth, Thomas works his tail off but not in a similar way to what we heard from Flowers. Thomas is a student of the game and along with his physical training it seems that he is very focused on film study as well.
Imo, Thomas showed a lot of promise this year, which in a world of instant results may get overlooked. He had some very poor games but also had some very good games. That volatility tells me he is going to be fine IF, and this is a big IF, he continues to work his tail off and take to coaching. For Thomas I think the injury can be a legit reason for his struggles whereas with Flowers there was more to it than the injury he had his rookie year.
I'm very bullish on Thomas.
another well-thoughtout response from a stellar poster
Quote:
and Thomas appears to be yet another first round bust at LT.
I stopped reading after this
Exactly, What a ridiculous comment. Did the OP even watch any games in the 2nd half of the season?
Both statements can be true.
Thomas was a liability and turned into a very good player in the end. Run blocking included which is another big proponent for these things. Why is it ignored? I'm comfortable with Thomas and Gates going forward. I do hope Lemiuex improves in pass pro but got Richie Seubert vibes with him.