It’s hard to appreciate what Andrew Thomas means to the Giants until he’s gone. Over the past three seasons, that absence has been impossible to miss.
That’s why the left tackle lands at No. 2 on the Giants’ list of most important players for 2026. Whether you want to argue Thomas, Brian Burns, and Malik Nabers in a different order, the reality is those three sit in the 2-through-4 range no matter how you shuffle them.
Thomas is exactly the kind of left tackle every team wants and almost nobody gets: dependable, isolated on an island, and trusted to handle the best pass rushers in football without much help. He proved it again in 2022, when he earned second-team All-Pro honors after giving up just four sacks and 23 pressures in 16 games.
Pro Football Focus ranked him as the NFL’s third-best offensive tackle, while Pro Football and Sports Network had him at No. 7.
He was even sharper in 2025. In 13 games, Thomas allowed one sack and 13 pressures.
His 90.3 PFF grade matched his elite 2022 mark, his 98.3 pass-blocking efficiency score was a career best, and PFSN gave him a career-best 88.6 Impact Score. Both outlets placed him as the league’s No. 5 offensive tackle.
But the Giants haven’t had nearly enough of that version of Thomas. Between 2022 and those final 13 games last season, he played in only 29 of the Giants’ 51 regular-season games.
Hamstring and knee injuries limited him to 10 games in 2023. A Lisfranc injury cost him 11 games in 2024, and a tough rehab kept him out until Week 3 last season.
He then missed the final two games with a hamstring injury.
The team’s record without him tells the story. The Giants are 5-17 (.227) in games Thomas has missed, including two late-season wins last year that meant more for draft position than anything else. They are 8-21 (.276) when he plays.
Even so, Thomas changes the shape of the offensive line. With him, the Giants have had a league-average unit over the last two seasons. Without him, they’ve been below that, especially in 2024.
The replacements have been all over the map. In 2023, the Giants turned to Josh Ezeudu and Justin Pugh.
In 2024, it was Ezeudu, Chris Hubbard, and eventually Jermaine Eluemunor. Last season, James Hudson and Marcus Mbow filled in.
Thomas remains a high-end player and a veteran the Giants trust to do everything the right way. He’ll continue to manage his foot for the rest of his career, and he also worked through a lingering shoulder injury this spring.
If the Giants want to be as good as they can be in 2026, they need Thomas out there.
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