The New York Giants would love to get back to the days when they had the toughest and most consistent offensive line in the NFL with guys like Chris Snee, Shaun O’Hara, Rich Seubert, Kareem McKenzie and David Diehl.
General manager Dave Gettleman’s affinity for “hog mollies” was supposed to get them back there, but thus far the transition has been a slow one. Yes, he did draft left guard Will Hernandez in the second round of the 2018 NFL Draft and has been tooling around with free agents and veteran pickups, but it wasn’t until this April that Gettleman decided to add some more young talent to his weakest unit.
Gettleman used the fourth overall pick to select Georgia tackle Andrew Thomas and then grabbed UConn tackle Matthew Peart in Round 3. To top things off, the Giants took Oregon guard Shane Lemieux, a throwback to those lineman of yesteryear, in Round 5.
But that doesn’t mean the Giants were totally devoid of talent on the line. They have Hernandez and veterans Nate Solder and Kevin Zeitler, but there is one other valuable man in the group that has gone unsung.
Nick Gates, an undrafted free agent out of Nebraska the Giants inked back in 2018, is entering his third season with Big Blue and intends to be very much in the mix. The 6-foot-5, 307-pound Gates played multiple positions last year on the offensive line for Pat Shurmur’s team.
“The thing you love about Nick is just how tough he is, because it’s a fist fight in there,” Gettleman said. “History tells you that the toughness of your team is really, really indicated by the toughness of your offensive line.”
And Gates is a tough guy. He attributes that to his upbringing in Nevada where he grew up in a construction worker environment.
“My toughness comes from that,” Gates told The New York Post. “We used to go at it and I had to hold my own. I was the youngest [for a long time], so everybody kind of picked on me. You have to be tough when you are the youngest. Playing football or wrestling, one of us gets mad and it starts off from there.”
This year with the new talent at tackle and the guard roles pretty much sealed up, Gates will be tried at center. He is looking forward to the challenge plus playing for a new unit coach in Marc Colombo.
“Colombo is a really good coach,” Gates said. “I like that he played [in the NFL] for 10 years. He understands that sometimes, when it gets tough, you just have to get the block — and that’s kind of how it happens. He loves teaching technique.”
Gates is not sitting around waiting for the Giants to convene to start his transition to center. He’s out in Las Vegas working out with Hernandez and some other Raiders players, where he is working out snapping the football to Raiders quarterback Derek Carr. He is wide open to the position change.
“If that’s where the team needs help, I’m ready to step up. The mental aspect is really the main load of center. It’s mostly a help position, but you have to point out where everybody goes and make sure everybody is on the same page. We’ll see when I get live reps with guys lined up three inches from me,” he said.
