Evan Neal and the New York Giants were expected to part ways this offseason after an incredibly disappointing four-year marriage.
Now – in a stunning turn of events no one really saw coming – they’re back together with the promise of giving it another go for one more year!
Neal, the Giants’ former first-round draft pick, has re-signed with the Giants on a one-year contract worth $1.215 million, the minimum for veterans with four seasons of experience, an individual with knowledge of the deal told NorthJersey.com and The Record.
The Giants are considering all options up front, especially on the interior, and team sources told NorthJersey.com and The Record that new coach John Harbaugh watched tape of Neal – in pre-draft evaluation and during his career here – and is motivated to see if his staff can get his play to a better level.
At 6-foot-7 and 340 pounds, Neal will get the opportunity in the offseason and training camp to show he can be an asset to the power running game that Harbaugh wants with the Giants. Is such a turnaround likely? The Giants have been waiting and waiting, and hoping, but Neal has come up empty for most of his NFL career to deliver on that promise.
Let’s go back in time when the Giants drafted Neal seventh overall in the first offseason for general manager Joe Schoen and former coach Brian Daboll. Neal was a consensus top 10 pick no matter what anyone wants to say right now, and he has now had two offensive line coaches swing and miss in an attempt to pull that talent out of him.
It was Ickey Ekwonu, Charles Cross and Neal, and the Giants absolutely needed a right tackle that year. So Neal being labeled as a bust now reveals questions about him and his development, and the Giants are ultimately responsible for that.
They resisted a move to the interior two seasons ago, in part because of Neal‘s lingering recovery from injury the previous year and how it caused him to miss valuable time in the summer.
It was a different story last summer and both the team and Neal wanted to see if a move to guard could jumpstart his career again and give him value on this roster.
Yet as much as there were flashes in training camp and the preseason, as much as the Giants gave him every opportunity to earn the starting spot at right guard, the former Alabama lineman could not beat out veteran Greg Van Roten. Van Roten again proved incredibly valuable, playing every snap at the position for the second straight year with the Giants.
That had to do with trust and execution in all phases, not just the hope that because of his frame and strength that Neal could become an asset in the run game.
Neal did not play a snap all season, and that left him with little to no trade value.
You can’t go through four years and not have a top 10 pick contributing on game day without viewing it as a knock against all involved, player included. But Harbaugh arrived promising a clean slate and that’s what Neal is going to get.
The only thing more surprising than Neal being back in a Giants uniform will be if he’s wearing one this season and contributing in some fashion on game day for the team