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May 27, 2025; El Segundo, CA, USA; Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert (10) throws the ball during organized team activities at The Bolt. Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

PFN Makes Interesting Pick for Giants in 2020 Round 1 Redraft

Originally posted on New York Giants on SI
By Stephen Lebitsch | Last updated Jun 2, 2025 12:00 PM ET

Over five years ago, the New York Giants were at the start of a new regime in East Rutherford — namely, the first year of the Joe Judge era — and they needed to put together an impactful draft to get things off to a good start ahead of the 2020 campaign.

The franchise was coming off the heels of another mediocre 4-12 season in 2019, the final under former head coach Pat Shurmur and longtime, Super Bowl-winning gunslinger Eli Manning, who only appeared in four games, in between which the Giants handed the reins off to then-rookie Daniel Jones who was drafted No. 6 overall in the previous draft.

With Jones, the highly questioned heir apparent to the offensive huddle, New York knew they had to focus on strengthening the offensive line to help with his early progression and offer a better chance of success on that side of the ball. They also had a lot of work to do on defense, where the Giants ranked in the basement of the NFL in most passing and rushing metrics that season.

As time would tell, the team would attack Jones' side from the jump of the 2020 draft, snagging Georgia offensive tackle Andrew Thomas with the fourth overall pick before rotating into the defense for a class that both featured great players like former safety Xavier McKinney but also a slew of project players who couldn't keep their footing within the organization.

Thomas, now one of the longest-tenured members in the Giants' locker room, has been one of the best investments that the Giants have made in recent times, holding down the left blindside while grading as one of the most efficient pass protectors in his position and across the league.

Still, the one downfall of his choice has undoubtedly been the long-term injuries he has sustained during his tenure in New York, missing a total of 18 games in the past two seasons to both ankle and Lisfranc injuries. When he is missing, the Giants' whole offense, but especially the quarterback position, doesn't see the same level of success as when he is available.

As difficult as it may seem to desire a mulligan at the top of the 2020 draft class where they'd be deviating away from one of the most indispensable players on their roster, how could things have turned out for the Giants franchise if they were offered a chance to redo that fateful selection?

Well, a new redraft exercise done by Pro Football Network takes the Giants in an interesting direction in an attempt to answer that question. They picked a player who could have significantly changed the results of the last few seasons for the organization, choosing then-Oregon quarterback Justin Herbert at the No. 4 slot.

“Though the Giants had just selected Daniel Jones the year before in real life, the magical power of hindsight lands them a quarterback in this 2020 NFL Redraft,” the article said.

“With 21,093 career passing yards in five years, Justin Herbert has been the most productive regular-season quarterback to come out of a loaded draft class.”

Exchanging Herbert, whom the Giants were heavily interested in the year prior until he decided to return to school for another season, for Thomas is still a pretty tough decision despite how good the quarterback has looked for the Los Angeles Chargers, who selected him just two picks after the Giants took their stalwart left tackle five years ago

Even with his ailments, no other offensive lineman within the Giants has been able to touch Thomas’s amazing numbers against some of the most elite pass rushers. Since 2023, he has been the top-graded pass blocker with at least a 71.8 PFF pass-blocking score and less than four sacks allowed in each of those two seasons.

Had he not gotten injured in Week 6 of the 2024 schedule, there is a good chance Thomas would have landed in the top 20 players in the pass block win rate category. As soon as he went down, the Giant's replacements were barely reliable, and it was a big force in the team’s skid to 26th (56%) in that statistic by the end of the year.

With the options the Giants have had outside of Thomas, it's likely his absence would, again, be a detriment to the offensive front, which has already been quite abysmal and still not completely resolved in 2025. On the other side, the Giants would have found a solid potential replacement for Daniel Jones, who had yet to reach his peak under center until the 2022 season.

There was endless debate surrounding whether the Giants and then general manager Dave Gettleman made a huge reach for Jones in the top six picks of the draft. Thus, they could have gone back-to-back years with drafting a first-round quarterback, allowing for a competition to occur in camp and develop their position group from there.

Perhaps Jones becomes a long-term backup to Herbert, and his story in New York is much different than it did, but the former arm would bring the Giants offense one of the highest-volume producers the league has seen.

Herbert has produced no less than a 65.1 completion percentage to go along with at least 3,134 passing yards and 20 touchdowns in his first-year NFL career.

Herbert has also finished no less than 14th in PFF passing grade since joining the pros. He has held top-10 status in each of the last four seasons, including his impressive 90.8 rating, which ranked fourth among the position behind two other starting quarterbacks, Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson.

The 27-year-old can flash one of the strongest arms when given the right amount of time in the pocket, throwing 32 passes of 20+ air yards that tallied a total of 985 yards, 10 touchdowns, and a big-time throw percentage of 31.2% that was the NFL's second best last season. Add to that his pretty solid ball protection, which has been an issue for Giants quarterbacks, and Herbert might have been the answer at the helm that the team is still desperately seeking out of its current options.

The only question that hindsight can't answer is whether the Giants would have held off on picking Jones so early in 2019 had they known about Herbert's incoming ascension from the college ranks.

It's possible they could have tried to ride the ship with Manning the rest of the 2019 season as he rode off into the sunset and then handed the keys to the huddle to a top prospect like Herbert, whose early career has been quite fruitful on the west coast.

It seems like we'll never know the outcome of that, but it can't be neglected that the professional game is hard on a young gunslinger, and one of the best tools for acclimation is a strong offensive line to ease the burden.

As much as the thought of Herbert wearing blue is wonderful now, it's fair to wonder if his early resume might look vastly different behind a Giants front without a premier blindside security guard that Thomas, when healthy, has become.

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