Maybe one day Evan Neal will get back up off the mat and realize the vision for him as the bookend for left tackle Andrew Thomas for the next decade.
Brian Daboll was expected to wrap Thomas and Daniel Jones and most if not all of his starters in bubble wrap for Saturday night’s preseason finale against the Jets.
He wasn’t saving any bubble wrap for Evan Neal.
Nor should he.
Because Evan Neal had ankle surgery in January, and started training camp on the PUP list, and only returned to practice on Aug. 11, on a limited basis, and missed 10 games last season, and four as a rookie, and has relinquished the starting right tackle job that had been handed to him to free-agent signee Jermaine Eluemunor.
Evan Neal had some work to do to prove to the Giants and to a disenchanted fan base that he is not a bust as the seventh pick of GM Joe Schoen’s first draft in 2022.
In no universe should the Giants give up on 6-foot-7, 350-pound Evan Neal.
The hope was that he could take the first significant steps of a comeback climb on Saturday night.
Neal did himself no favors last October, when he ripped into “fair-weather” Giants fans who had been booing him for his matador pass protection.
“Why would a lion concern himself with the opinion of a sheep?” Neal told NJ.com. “The person that’s commenting on my performance, what does he do? Flip hot dogs and hamburgers somewhere?”
Because it was a Jets home game Saturday, Neal caught a break with fewer Giants fans who flip hot dogs and hamburgers somewhere in the MetLife Stadium stands.
Daboll was encouraged by Neal’s showing in the joint practice with the Jets, and is holding out hope that he can serve as a swing tackle when the regular season starts at home against the Vikings.
“Yeah, it’s a big year for me,” Neal said.
The change in offensive line coaches from Bobby Johnson to Carmen Bricillo may prove to be beneficial for Neal.
“I’m always going to be the harshest critic on myself, so yeah, I need to play better,” Neal said.
He incurred the wrath of Giants fans when Cowboys DE DeMarcus Lawrence used him as a turnstile for three sacks in Week 3 of his rookie season.
“Here’s the thing,” said Paul Dottino, co-host of Big Blue Kickoff Live. “The Giants fans in general are so incredibly frustrated by the fact that this offensive line continues year after year after year after year is a problem. And he was supposed to be one of the fixes. Because he didn’t work out and he was such a high pick, there was extra frustration over his failure.”
Just because you are the seventh pick of the NFL draft, just because you played for Nick Saban at Alabama, you better not show up with any sense of entitlement, or you will learn that the NFL can humble you quicker than an Aaron Donald get-off.
“Daniel Jones, Evan Neal and I think the whole Saquon Barkley thing — those are the three most called about topics on the show for the last two years,” Dottino said.
Neal struggled in his first preseason game as a rookie and said afterward: “I’m definitely not a finished product, but I’m getting better and better every day. I belong here, I belong in this league, and like I say, I’m just going to take it day by day. I like to listen to the opinions that matter. I’m going to win reps; I’m going to lose reps. That’s all a part of it. The preseason games and everything and so forth are just extra experiences that I’m going to get under my belt, and I’m going to learn from all those mistakes and learn from the things that I need to get better at.”
He has plenty left to learn. It’s up to him now to turn bust into boom.
