2022 NFL Draft: New York Giants Dream First-Round Becomes Reality

It’s been a minute since I last wrote for TPS and the Giants beat I took over several months ago. Times have been crazy in the sports world, but I am back nonetheless and strive to bring the best content to the Talking Points Sports readership in the months to come. 

It’s not simply a resumption for me, but also a new beginning for the New York Football Giants. The team is now under the bright guidance and leadership of general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll, coming over from Buffalo to bring another New York franchise from the dungeons to playoff and championship-caliber success.

Since taking over earlier this year, the job hasn’t been easy but it’s hard to say the two haven’t passed the first few checkpoints with flying colors. First, Schoen has worked hard to make the correct roster moves needed to free up cap space and avoid further hindering the Giants financial future. Free agency wasn’t a fireworks show by any stretch, but the former assistant GM in Buffalo made sure he brought in needed positions, notably signing a few cheap stop-gap players on veteran-minimum deals towards the offensive line–Mark Glowinski, Jon Feliciano, and Jamil Douglas. 

Now, after weeks of mock drafting (check out mine for Sports Illustrated/Fan Nation’s “Giants Country” here), speculating, analyzing prospects, and simply waiting Roger Goodell to call the name card, the new Giants leaderships’ feats include executing an unbelievable start to the 2022 NFL Draft. 

On Thursday night, the Giants entered the draft in Las Vegas with two picks in the top-10 of the first round–No. 5 and No.7 overall–and more than double the possibilities for how to deploy them. Like with my mock, the consensus view was an offensive tackle selection at the fifth pick followed by either an edge rusher or cornerback at the seventh slot, two positions of greatest need on the current roster. 

As the festivities approached, rumors of the Giants trading down started to surface. Noise about the potential for a WR selection intensified amid the reports of former 2021 first-round pick and wide receiver Kadarius Toney being on the trade block following his absence from the team’s voluntary minicamp. Many fans were left to wonder if Schoen was going to get “cute” or elect to take a surprise pick at either of the two first-round and force television remotes in the tri-state area to be thrown into their respective screens. 

Luckily, those remotes will be spared from fans’ wrath as the team kept their composure, stuck to their big board guns and executed arguably the best first-round selections in the past decade. 

With the No. 5 and 7 picks in the 2022 NFL Draft, the Giants reversed my predictions and dominated the first-round landscape, selecting Oregon edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux before landing offensive tackle Evan Neal out of Alabama. Both Top-10 players on Pro Football Focus’s Big Board, Thibs and Neal fell into the Giants’ lap in the most dream scenario possible. 

As soon as the draft kicked off, it was a defensive fiasco as the first four selections featured defensive players coming off the board. Jacksonville went with Georgia’s Travon Walker in a shocking No. 1 overall choice, Detroit followed with Aidan Hutchinson, Houston switched directions and went with Derrick Stingley Jr, and the Jets stole Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner, the Giants No. 1 cornerback prospect, at No. 4. 

While Gardner and Walker were off the board, suddenly the Giants had their ideal situation on the offensive side–all three offensive tackles available with two picks in the next three and only the Carolina Panthers snug in between at No. 6. It seemed like Neal or NC State’s Ikem Ekonwu were next to be announced, but given the opportunity in front of him Schoen knew he had at least his choice of two of the top-3 tackles in the class. So, in an exciting move, he brought the vivacious Thibodeaux to the Big Apple and partnered him with the behemoth Neal two picks later. 

“We’re ecstatic with the two picks we got,” Schoen said of the selections Thursday night. The first-year GM noted the Giants direction was established once they saw how the board fell to them. 

“If there were two tackles on the board and the pass rusher, we were gonna go pass rusher knowing we could get a tackle at 7. We were ecstatic when the scenario came up.”

A five-star recruit out of Los Angeles and an All-American honors nominee in 2019, Thibodeaux not only lands in his “second home” but has big shoes to fill as well. He became the first edge rusher to be drafted by the Giants in the first round since Jason Pierre-Paul in 2010 and the first defensive player in the same round since Eli Apple in 2016.

Next to names like Pierre-Paul, a Super Bowl champion defensive linemen in 2011, Thibodeaux will have to prove he can shift his talents to the NFL level and thrive at resurrecting the pass rushing prowess that made the Giants’ championship teams memorable. That shouldn’t be an issue as the Oregon product checks off so many intangible boxes. 

There is no doubt Thibodeaux was the most versatile defensive edge rusher in this year’s draft class. He is an incredibly athletic player with freakish speed that catches opposing linemen off guard and he uses his powerful hands and mobile hips to explode into the lineman, give them a pop off the snap, and work through or around them in pursuit of the ball carrier. 

At 6’4” 252 pounds, Thibodeaux also has size and a long frame to further develop into a top-pass rusher which is something the Giants have lacked in recent seasons (they finished in the bottom third of the league in that category last season). Most of all, he is an excellent pre-snap reader who can decipher offensive schemes and set up his moves accordingly. 

When he enters MetLife Stadium for his NFL debut this upcoming fall, what’s on Thibodeaux’s mind is setting the tone and not taking a single moment for granted. 

“I’m trying to be a trailblazer,” he said. “I know there’s a lack of opportunity where I come from…I want to bridge that gap and help as many people as I can.”

“For me, it’s put up or shut up. I didn’t work this hard in high school and all this to get in the league and not continue to be that competitor that I am.”

If one thing is certain, the Giants are ready to bring that competitor out of Thibodeaux and aren’t concerned about his big personality. 

“I like coaching good guys,” head coach Brian Daboll said. “As long as they love football and they’re a pro on and off the field…that’s the job of the coach, to learn your players.”

As with Thibodeaux, the Giants have immediate plans for their No. 7 pick in Neal. After Ikem Ekonwu, rated by many as the best offensive tackle in the class, New York still had their choice of two of their top-three offensive tackles. They selected the name fans coveted, taking the 6’7” 337 pound Alabama prospect whom Schoen told the media will compete right away for the starting right tackle spot. 

Neal becomes the third offensive linemen selected by the Giants in Rounds 1-3 since 2020, his predecessors being new teammate on the left bookend of the line, Andrew Thomas, and Matt Peart, the Giants third round pick last two years ago. Of the three, it’s apparent the All-American from Tuscaloosa tops the two with his behemoth size and flexibility. 

As one of my fellow writers at Giants Country described, Neal “is a mountain of a man with two redwood trees attached to his torso.” Even with this size and frame that tends to limit other offensive linemen of his stature, Neal is still a highly explosive player with great hands and quick feet that nearly inhibit defenders and take them along for a ride to the second level. 

Neal thrives the most in blocking in the run game, but you can’t discount his incredible efficacy in pass blocking. Through three seasons and 1400 snaps at Alabama, Neal allowed just 36 pressures and scored a 98.6 pass blocking efficiency rating. He accomplished these numbers playing in numerous positions across the Crimson Tide’s line, logging over 700 snaps each at left tackle, left guard and right tackle. 

While the Giants seem set on playing Neal at right tackle this season, his versatility of experience could allow him to earn opportunities to contribute along different spots of the offensive line, especially if injuries start to kick in again. Yet, there is one element of the rookie’s game that they may have to work on before they trust him in interior positions. 

Despite his great lower body flexibility, Neal occasionally falls victim to his inconsistent technique. He often bends too much at the waist and becomes unbalanced when he rises and tries to move laterally with the defender. On the pass rush, he can have a high center of gravity that leaves him susceptible to surprise counter riches or falling flat on his back while the pocket collapses around him. 

The Giants have seen too much of that from their offensive line, so it will be imperative to combine Neal’s downfield blocking ability with a prowess for lateral blocking if they want him to become the right-side stud he has been scouted for months. 

“I’m just thankful, definitely humbled and grateful,” Neal said to SNY at the draft. 

Through the remainder of the draft, the Giants will hold seven picks including three in rounds 2 and 3 Friday night, but for now they’ve nailed two positions of need on their roster, one of which has been nothing short of awful over the past decade. Thibodeaux was the prospect the Giants spent the most time with pre-draft, so they believed in his abilities and the chance to select him if the board fell in their favor. Neal gives that immense right bookend tackle as the Giants look to surround with the veterans on the inside who can mentor him and Andrew Thomas into excellent offensive line talents this season. 

If I had to give a grade off Night 1 alone, Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll receive an A+ plus in a heartbeat. It’s hard to not believe the turnaround in draft strategy from a year ago, and I’m confident at this point that the new regime has the Giants franchise heading back in the right direction. 

It’s not riding high to the Super Bowl just yet, but it’s fair to expect competitiveness and a playoff push out of the Giants this season if the entire roster continues to come together under the new offensive and defensive systems.