NY Giants meet with Andrew Thomas at NFL combine

The NY Giants met with top offensive tackle prospect Andrew Thomas at the combine on Thursday.

The new NFL combine rules have lowered the number of total prospects that teams are allowed to meet with from 45 to 30. As such, these private meetings have become all the more important, and the NY Giants choosing to spend one on Andrew Thomas means something.

The Big Blue offensive line has lacked a blue-chip prospect for quite some time as the franchise has taken just one (or two if you count Justin Pugh who moved to guard very quickly) tackle over the past twenty years. Sitting in the sweet spot of the draft, the NY Giants should be able to come away with whichever of the elite tackles they want, maybe even still after trading down.

The only true left tackle out of the ‘big four’ offensive tackle prospects, Thomas was the consensus top tackle in the 2020 class all season long before draft ‘experts’ have now comically moved him down after nothing has changed or happened since the season ended. Hopefully, GM Dave Gettleman will ignore the perceived drop and take a hard look at the two-time NCAA All-American.

Thomas is not going to light up the combine by any means as athletiscm is not his strong suit. He won’t run a fast 40 time, although the fact that people worry about an offensive lineman’s 40 time when they don’t run forward more than 10 yards in a game is pretty silly.

It’ll be intersting to see which other offensive tackles Gettleman chooses to meet with, and it’s a fair bet to assume the position will make up the highest percentage of those 30 interviews. There’s a chance he could meet with each of the four top prospets, while also identifying and interviewing a few of the day two or three tackle prospects as well.

Either way, it’s an encouraging sign to see the NY Giants taking an interest in Andrew Thomas, who figures to be a starter at left tackle for a decade.