The New York Giants have several key players they couldn’t do without: quarterback Daniel Jones, left tackle Andrew Thomas, nose tackle Dexter Lawrence and inside linebacker Bobby Okereke.
But which of that group, and perhaps a few others, are the most important to the team? And if you were to eliminate Jones as an obvious answer, whose loss would hurt the team most?
Cody Benjamin of CBS Sports recently sought to answer that very question and settled on Thomas over Lawrence.
His 2022 success confirmed his arrival as a top young tackle a la Penei Sewell in Detroit. For all the talk about getting Daniel Jones more help out wide, Brian Daboll’s attack probably hinges more on Thomas standing pat at LT to keep the QB upright.
It would be hard to argue with Benjamin’s point even if you wanted to. And we don’t.
If the Giants were to lose Thomas, the offensive line would lack a lockdown bookend. They would have to rely on Matt Peart, Tyre Phillips or Korey Cunningham, all of whom would represent a significant drop-off in talent.
Thomas has established himself as one of the best tackles in football and is still ascending. The sky is the limit and outside of the quarterback position, left tackle may be the most important for all 32 NFL teams.
