NY Giants pair of trades underscore grave concern about offensive line

The NY Giants all but admitted they’re in a world of trouble along the offensive line by scrambling to fix a problem the organization mostly ignored all offseason

The NY Giants bet big on skill position players this offseason, crossing their fingers that the dam would hold up up front and pair of picks from last year’s draft would be adequate.

But, the organization’s actions this week are a realization of just how much trouble quarterback Daniel Jones and the offense might be in behind this offensive line.

Left tackle Andrew Thomas, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft crumbling amid the onslaught of the Patriots’ front-seven in Sunday night’s preseason finale seems to have been an inflection point that deciding not to draft a linemen this spring or shop at the top of the market was a loser’s gamble.

Rather than take a hard look at Thomas’ inconsistent rookie season — in which he allowed 10 sacks and pressure on just under 10 percent of his pass-blocking snaps — and sign a top veteran to protect Daniel Jones’ blind side during a pivotal third season and move Thomas to the right, NY Giants general manager Dave Gettleman stood pat, hoping a cavalry of offensive line coaches would fix what ailed the Georgia alum.

“You can’t win when you have four offensive line coaches,” a league source tells FanSided. “Especially with a group this young. You just can’t win that way.”

Instead of identifying the flaws in Shane Lemieux’s rookie campaign, where he earned a 16.9 pass-blocking grade from PFF and a 32.2 overall mark, while allowing pressure on just over eight percent of his snaps in pass-protection and targeting a top interior lineman in the draft or free agency, the NY Giants shopped the going out of business sale at the Department Store Zach Fulton, Joe Looney, and Jonotthan Harrison Inc.

None of those depth signings  will be on the roster Week 1.

That the NY Giants were relying on Fulton, Looney, and Harrison shows a miscalculation on Gettleman and the entire organization’s part on how dire the need to fortify the offensive line this offseason really was.

All of these decisions lead to this week. A week that saw Gettleman, head coach Joe Judge, and the NY Giants front office take part in an organizational mad dash to slap some duct tape on a crumbling retaining wall tasked with keeping a quarterback chosen with the No. 6 overall pick upright, and opening running lanes for a back aiming for the kind of season to justify becoming the highest-paid player at his position.

To be fair, Billy Price and Ben Bredeson might wind up being fine players.

Both could be forced into pivotal roles 12 days after arriving in East Rutherford.

But, Pro Football Focus lists Price as the No. 66 ranked out of 69 centers this preseason. Bredeson showed some promise as a rookie, but finished the season on injured reserve with a knee injury last year.

Following the news first reported by The Athletic that Lemieux has a partially torn patella tendon and plans to play through it, the pressure is on Price and Bredeson, two players acquired in the 24 hours leading up to the Bengals and Ravens trimming their rosters to 53 players to potentially salvage this line.

The ultimate irony, and really the ultimate shame, for the NY Giants in 2021 would be if after finally adopting an organizational philosophy of hyper aggressively adding weapons; Kenny Golladay ($45 million guaranteed), Kadarius Toney (first-round pick), and Kyle Rudolph in order to give Jones the best possible chance to succeed and the franchise a legitimate opportunity to evaluate his ceiling, is all undone because the franchise got complacent after middling results from the young offensive linemen it acquired last offseason.

When the Denver Broncos arrive with Von Miller, Bradly Chubb, and a swarming front-seven in tow, we’ll get a pretty good idea if the NY Giants’ reactionary moves this week were enough to fix what has been a decade long sojourn to fix an offensive line that feels to closer to the finish line today than it has since Gettleman arrived.

Matt Lombardo is FanSided’s National NFL Insider and writes Between The Hash Marks each Wednesday. Email Matt: Matt.Lombardo@FanSided.com.