Giants LT Andrew Thomas Just Misses PFF’s Top-10 OT Ranking
Andrew Thomas struggled with injuries last season, but he was still head and shoulders the best offensive lineman the Giants had.
Pound for pound, New York Giants left tackle Andrew Thomas is still among the best at his position in today’s NFL.
But is he still top-10 worthy? Not according to Pro Football Focus’s Zoltan Buday. In their ranking of the top 32 offensive tackles ahead of training camp, Thomas just missed the cut for the top 10, instead coming in at No. 11.
Thomas missed seven games last season, most of those due to a hamstring strain suffered in the first quarter of the regular-season opener when he tried chasing down Dallas Cowboys Noah Igbinoghene on a 58-yard touchdown run that came on a blocked field goal. Because of the injury, Thomas never did look anything close to his 2022 version, when he was named a second-team All-Pro.
While not taking away from the players listed in the top 10, Buday may have short-changed Thomas in the rankings. Thomas did play a career-low 576 snaps last season and didn’t look like himself, but he was still the best offensive lineman the Giants had on a unit that logged the second most sacks allowed (85) in league history.
Buday said of Thomas “His 90.3 overall grade in 2022 ranked third at the position, and he finished in the top 10 in pass-blocking grade last year even though it was a relatively down year for the Giants tackle.”
Perhaps it was just a matter of Thomas being guilty by association given the overall putrid play of the Giants’ offensive line. Or maybe it was his run-blocking grade, which took a nosedive from 81.0 in 2022 to 64.1 in 2023, that caused Thomas’s stock to fall in Buday’s analysis.
Whatever the reason, the Giants still managed to go 4-5 once Thomas returned to the lineup, and he was good enough in the coaches’ eyes to where they didn’t give him an ounce of help in protecting the blindside, despite his struggles from the injury’s left-over effects.
Thomas has also been a master at positioning himself to ensure his edge is kept as clean as possible, and he put that skill to great use to survive out there when he was clearly still hurting.
But considering he tied for fifth among tackles with at least 300 pass-blocking snaps last season for fewest pressures allowed (17), it’s fair to wonder how much Thomas, the only one of the Giants’ two starting offensive tackles to even make the list, missed the cut to make the top-10.
