The Giants made a loud bet when they turned Dexter Lawrence into a rookie right guard, and three games into the season, Francis Mauigoa is giving them every reason to believe in it.
Mauigoa, the No. 10 overall pick New York landed in the Dexter Lawrence trade with Cincinnati, has opened his NFL career with a clean pass-protection sheet: three pressures and no sacks on 191 snaps. For a 21-year-old who shifted inside from tackle as soon as he arrived, that’s a sturdy beginning.
The move itself was a gamble built on upside and contract math more than immediate production. New York gave up a proven interior defender for an untested blocker, but Mauigoa has done the one thing this offense absolutely needs from him - keep the pocket from collapsing.
His debut against Dallas hinted at what might be coming. In Week 1, he handled 36 pass-blocking snaps without allowing a pressure, becoming the first rookie since 2018 to get through at least 35 pass-blocking snaps in a Week 1 game without giving one up. He played 69 offensive snaps in that game, with 67 of them at right guard.
That early work wasn’t a fluke. Mauigoa has lined up at right guard for 189 of his 191 snaps, and he’s given up only three pressures and two quarterback hits overall. Those are strong numbers for any starter, and they stand out even more because he’s doing it as a first-year player.
The grading picture is more mixed, which is exactly what you’d expect from a rookie still learning the job. PFF has Mauigoa 55th among 70 qualifying guards with a 50.7 overall grade, and his 55.1 run-blocking mark points to a player whose pass protection is ahead of his work as a finisher in the run game.
That growth matters because the interior around him hasn’t been clean. Center John Michael Schmitz has graded near the bottom of the league, which puts even more pressure on Mauigoa to keep climbing rather than just hold steady.
For now, the Giants have something they couldn’t know they were getting on draft night: a rookie who looks comfortable in the one area this line can least afford to lose. They sent away a known commodity and drafted a projection. Through three games, that projection is starting to look like a plan.
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Edmunds has not turned in the splash plays yet, with no sacks or takeaways to his name, but that has not muted his early impact. The larger point for the Giants is that his tackle volume is showing up exactly where they needed it, and the defense has been better for it. The next question is whether that steady production can eventually turn into the kind of disruptive plays that make the upgrade feel even bigger. [Read more 🡒]