The New York Giants drafted Evan Neal with the seventh overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft to be the answer at right tackle.
The Giants are currently in the early stages of a rebuild but a good place to start is always the offensive line. They already have their left tackle in Andrew Thomas, so the defacto next place to go is the right tackle position.
This is where Neal comes in to play as a 6-foot-7 and 350-pound All-American out of Alabama.
It always takes time with young tackles in the NFL but one positive to note is that the Giants run a similar system to the Crimson Tide and Neal feels very comfortable in this role.
“I’m comfortable and confident that I will be able to perform and execute anything that the coaches ask me to do in our scheme and our offense,” Neal told reporters on Friday. “It’s a similar scheme that I ran in college, just different verbiage and different terminology. I don’t really have those kinds of conversations with my coaches because everything they ask me to do is well within my capabilities.”
While Neal did not have the strongest preseason debut, he demonstrated a lot of his raw talent and promise for the future. He acknowledged that he has things to improve on stating that he is “definitely not a finished product” but “getting better every day.”
With this continued improvement, the duo of Thomas and Neal with Saquon Barkley behind them could be a scary sight for defenses in 2022.
“I need to continue to work on the same things that I have been harping on with myself and the things that the coaches have been emphasizing as well,” Neal said. “Just different technical things as far as like set angles, hat placement and my base. That’s pretty much what I need to work on, things that are definitely going to help propel my game to the next level.”
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