Big Blue View
Can Neal save his career as a Giant with a move to guard?
There are a whole host of storylines to follow as the New York Giants progress through their off-season program and eventually through training camp and preseason.
One of the most important will be how the offensive line comes together. The Giants’ offensive line looks to be set at four of the five positions, but there’s questions as to who will man the second guard spot opposite Jon Runyan Jr.
That, of course, touches on one of the other major threads to follow: The transition of Evan Neal from right tackle inside to guard.
Neal was unsurprisingly the subject of a significant part of offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo’s media availability at the Giants’ mandatory minicamp on Tuesday.
And thus far, Bricillo says, Neal is faring well in his transition from tackle to guard.
“He’s doing well so far,” Bricillo said. “Excited to see when we put pads on, you know, what happens. But he’s embraced it. We’ve embraced it. It’s been good so far.”
There were some questions, from myself included, as to whether Neal’s stature at 6-foot-7 would pose a problem at guard. Defensive tackles are, almost as a rule, shorter, stouter, and better leveraged than taller, longer edge rushers.
Bricillo isn’t certain that Neal’s size won’t be a problem at guard, but there have been enough players to move inside from tackle that he think it can be a successful transition.
“Throughout the NFL, plenty of guys have moved from tackle to guard,” Bricillo said. “So, we’ll see how it goes.”
There is precedent for a big tackle successfully playing guard. Former Geoff Schwartz was nearly as big as Neal at 6-foot-6, 340 pounds and played both guard and tackle over the course of his career. While his career was curtailed by injury, he was also among the NFL’s best guards when healthy.
Neal was seen by media at left guard during OTAs. He lined up at both left and right guard during Tuesday’s minicamp practice.
“He’s swung, he’s played both [guard positions],” Bricillo said. “I think initially when we had done it, his familiarity of having played left guard when he was at Alabama. So there’s probably a goal for that of, ‘okay, hey, we’ll make it a switch. Let’s go ahead and feel comfortable to that’. But he’s now played both sides and he’ll continue to play both sides.”
Bricillo also addressed concerns regarding Neal’s footwork, and how changing positions might impact it. He didn’t indicate that Neal would need to make tremendous changes with respect to the fundamental technique of his pass sets and run blocking.
“We don’t change a whole lot, as far as I would say, the set angles that you would employ more often than not,” Bricillo said. “It might be a little different at guard versus tackle. But otherwise the core fundamentals of offensive line play, at least for myself, don’t differ a whole lot except for set...
