When the New York Giants lined up across from the Washington Football Team on Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium, left tackle Andrew Thomas was conspicuously absent.
Instead of Thomas guarding Daniel Jones’ blind side, third-round pick Matt Peart was called upon.
Initially, it was believed that decision was made due to Thomas’ poor play in recent weeks, but it turns out that was not the case. Rather, Thomas was benched for the first few offensive series of the game for disciplinary reasons after he arrived late to a team meeting on Saturday.
“I was late for our meeting last night,” Thomas said in a statement. “Coach Judge always talks about actions have consequences, and I take responsibility for my actions and the consequences. It won’t happen again.”
After sitting out early in the game, Thomas eventually turned to man the left tackle position, but after missing a few blocks, he headed back to the bench with Peart again stepping in.
Head coach Joe Judge insists that neither benching was the result of poor play.
“I want to make clear, this wasn’t performance based at all,” Judge told reporters. “I’m not going to go too far into detail, but what I will say is Andrew violated team policy. There was nothing disobedient, disrespectful or malicious in what he did, but he made a mistake and there’s consequences for mistakes. We’ve got to make sure that we go ahead and we handle that the right way. That being said, I thought that Andrew did a really good job of accepting it, staying ready, performing when he got in the game.
“I’m glad Matt was ready and I’m proud of how Andrew responded to it, he was very mature about it, came in early and competed well. Again, I’ll emphasize it’s important that everyone understands he didn’t do anything disrespectful, anything malicious or disobedient, but he made a mistake and mistakes have consequences.”
Thomas did not play particularly well when he was in the game on Sunday, while Peart appeared stout and ready to go. We’ll see if that has any lasting impact on the team’s depth or rotation of the offensive line.
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