In 2016, star-struck highschool football recruit Andrew Thomas met NFL great Trent Williams.
Six years later, Thomas finished second to the seemingly ageless Williams within the NFL’s All-Pro vote.
Is that this the season that Thomas surpasses Williams on the sphere and eventually on the bank?
Could the Giants have the very best left tackle within the league by the playoffs?
“Obviously, you wish accolades, and you must be the very best, but you don’t get there by worrying about that,” Thomas said when asked about shouldering raised expectations off of his breakthrough Second-Team All-Pro selection. “You get there by working each day to recuperate, and that’s what I’m focused on.”
Clichés aside, leave no room for confusion: Thomas desires to stake a consistent claim as one in all the elites on the second-most essential position in football.
“I’m a competitor,” Thomas said. “I need to be the very best for my team. It’s not nearly me, but I do wish to be one in all the higher players within the league.”
The Giants exercised Thomas’ contractual fifth-year option earlier this month and now must consider whether to open extension talks while he’s under team control for 2 more seasons — at discount salary-cap charges of $10.2 million in 2023 and $14.1 million in 2023 — or wait.
“It’s definitely a blessing,” Thomas said of adding one other guaranteed 12 months to his contract. “The great thing is I’ll be here not less than five years. We haven’t really gotten into anything [negotiating] yet. If it happens, it happens. Straight away, I’m just specializing in the primary a part of the offseason, and the remainder will deal with itself.”
If the Giants consider Thomas, 24, is simply going to enhance, an early extension gets ahead of a rising market and might be structured to offer fast cap relief in order that other short-term measures with dead-cap ramifications should not needed.
Thomas is a perfectionist relating to areas of improvement.
“Starting with my set in pass protection, just being more consistent with my inside foot, ensuring I’m staying on the angle consistently,” he said. “My hands in pass protection as well, especially the within hand, ensuring I keep leverage on power moves.”
Williams became the highest-paid offensive lineman in NFL history when he signed a six-year, $138 million contract ($55 million guaranteed) with the 49ers in March 2021.
Since then, Williams has been a two-time First-Team All-Pro, but his two-year stay atop the market ended when the Texans re-signed Laremy Tunsil to a three-year, $75 million extension that established a recent high of a $25 million annual contract average.
“To me, there’s no deal to be made unless you’re topping Tunsil,” NFL contracts expert Joel Corry of CBSSports.com told The Post. “You can make a case Thomas was the very best left tackle last 12 months, so you may either do it now and be somewhat above Tunsil or, if he has one other 12 months like last 12 months, it’s going to be much above.”
Thomas was ranked because the No. 3 offensive tackle within the league last season (No. 3 pass-blocker and No. 7 run-blocker) by Pro Football Focus.
Snubbed twice by the Pro Bowl since he was a struggling rookie, Thomas has allowed just six sacks on 1,217 pass-blocking snaps over the past two seasons combined.
No. 1 pick Kyler Murray was the one member of the 2019 first-round draft class who signed an extension after three seasons.
The 2020 draft class (Thomas was picked No. 4) just became extension eligible, so who can be first?
“At a premium position, I could understand why they could wish to lock him up sooner relatively than later, so if I’m the team, I’d have exploratory conversations,” said Corry, a former player agent. “If I’m him, if we don’t get something done now, I’m waiting for [Buccaneers’] Tristan Wirfs’ deal to get done — that’s going to be a blockbuster once they should not paying a quarterback there — after which attempting to top him.”
The Giants face Williams’ 49ers this season and Thomas hopes for a probability to remind his counterpart that they met years ago at a Nike recruiting camp.
And if someone had told a teenage Thomas then that he eventually can be mentioned in the identical echelon as Williams?
“He would have been stoked, excited,” Thomas admitted. “It’s crazy, of course.”
