Big Blue Huddle

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If they make him work at RT the entire spring/summer only for him to inevitably lose the job and then try to force him to play guard at the last minute with little to no practice reps...then maybe the Giants just hate this guy.

He's not the best RT on the roster. It's pretty obvious. We don't know if he's any good at guard. He might not be. But he also might be. Only they refuse to find out for reasons that remain unclear.

What's the harm in letting him get some work in at guard? He plays poorly at RT? Ummmm that's exactly where we are right now.

Quote from: Gmo11 on May 24, 2024, 06:13:59 AMIf they make him work at RT the entire spring/summer only for him to inevitably lose the job and then try to force him to play guard at the last minute with little to no practice reps...then maybe the Giants just hate this guy.

He's not the best RT on the roster. It's pretty obvious. We don't know if he's any good at guard. He might not be. But he also might be. Only they refuse to find out for reasons that remain unclear.

What's the harm in letting him get some work in at guard? He plays poorly at RT? Ummmm that's exactly where we are right now.

There is some validity in what you say.    For what it's worth, there is not much oline development in OTAS.

It's the right decision. He doesn't have the skill set or the body to play Guard. Slow off the Snap, top heavy and tall. All his issues are correctable.

this says to me, we still trust our scouting reports and feel the coaches we had in place to develop Neal failed him. 

We will do our best with what we feel is a competent coach to salvage his career and the investment of our draft pick

Quote from: babywhales on May 24, 2024, 08:07:30 AMthis says to me, we still trust our scouting reports and feel the coaches we had in place to develop Neal failed him.

We will do our best with what we feel is a competent coach to salvage his career and the investment of our draft pick

I think we can also consider that most of the scouting reports, including those by former NFL professionals, were positive about Neal.   Now, they (the draftniks) didn't have a chance to interview him, and Neal avoided all the combined athletic testing, but his college film didn't indicate (with the exception of being on the ground too much) that he was a questionable prospect.

I wonder if he played with some kind of ankle injury which made him ineffective to move/drive off his feet.  Maybe Dabs sees him as healthy and ready to play better.  Only thing I can inagine.

Quote from: Ed Vette on May 24, 2024, 08:02:03 AMIt's the right decision. He doesn't have the skill set or the body to play Guard. Slow off the Snap, top heavy and tall. All his issues are correctable.

So why haven't any of them been corrected after two years of disgusting play?  You'd think by now we'd have seen some signs of life but he's as bad as he's ever been.  I agree he's not the prototype guard but neither was Flowers and that guy was at the very least serviceable once Washington moved him to guard.  He was as bad as Neal is now at tackle.  I don't know if Neal will be any good at guard.  He could be just as bad or worse.  But I would like to see it before I dismiss it.

Between the injuries and having to switch sides, I'm hopeful that it will come together for him. 

Having already reversed ourselves after-the-fact so as to enable us to second-guess the wisdom in investing the 7th overall pick in an attempt to fill what has been a glaring need at Right Tackle, have we now concluded that it's a waste of time and effort to do so any further where Evan Neal is concerned?

On the other hand, in his 3 years at Alabama, where he was every bit an All-American, he did start 13 games at Left Guard, 12 at Right Tackle, and 15 at Left Tackle. That may speak to his versatility or, perhaps, it just left him confused. In any case, he may have some value somewhere. So, assuming he's fully recovered from his injury-shortened last season, why not give him another shot at the position for which he was drafted? That will still leave time to try him elsewhere on the Oline before they decide to cut him. N'est-ce pas?  Hmm?

Cheers!

Quote from: Gmo11 on May 24, 2024, 10:16:52 AMSo why haven't any of them been corrected after two years of disgusting play?  You'd think by now we'd have seen some signs of life but he's as bad as he's ever been.  I agree he's not the prototype guard but neither was Flowers and that guy was at the very least serviceable once Washington moved him to guard.  He was as bad as Neal is now at tackle.  I don't know if Neal will be any good at guard.  He could be just as bad or worse.  But I would like to see it before I dismiss it.

I'm sure when they or if they give up on him at Tackle they will try him at Guard or his next Gig will. I'm not even cautiously optimistic about that.

I definitely think Neal should at least be given a shot at guard if he fails again at tackle. There is no reason to let him go because he can't play tackle, only to see him be a respectable to good guard somewhere else. They did that with Flowers and it was a bit embarrassing. They also played Flowers at tackle, watching him fail miserably over and over, for far too long. They should have tried him at guard in the third year when it was continuing to not work at tackle. Both are lessons to draw on.

If he becomes a good guard on another team and Giants never saw that, shame on the Giants.

Quote from: Philosophers on May 25, 2024, 10:00:06 AMIf he becomes a good guard on another team and Giants never saw that, shame on the Giants.

For sure. He's still on his rookie contract. Not that it's a negligible amount of money relative to what he has given them, but they should at least use the time he's on it to see if he can contribute meaningfully in any way.

He needs to perform this year though, one way or another. While I agree that the Giants need to explore other spots on the line if he continues to be a bust at OT, this team also has a history of clinging to, accepting underperfomance from, and making excuses for picks they had high aspirations for that, in reality, simply weren't the players they thought they were. This happened with Will Hernandez, Lorenzo Carter, and a host of others in recent times that I'd rather not have to name because it's not a very pleasant topic.

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on May 25, 2024, 10:39:20 AMFor sure. He's still on his rookie contract. Not that it's a negligible amount of money relative to what he has given them, but they should at least use the time he's on it to see if he can contribute meaningfully in any way.

He needs to perform this year though, one way or another. While I agree that the Giants need to explore other spots on the line if he continues to be a bust at OT, this team also has a history of clinging to, accepting underperfomance from, and making excuses for picks they had high aspirations for that, in reality, simply weren't the players they thought they were. This happened with Will Hernandez, Lorenzo Carter, and a host of others in recent times that I'd rather not have to name because it's not a very pleasant topic.

I say work him to death with reps at RT wibut experiment early with him at RG.  See what you see.

Play him through first four games at RT and see how he plays. If he fails at RT yank him out of there.