How Much Did Giants' O-line Improve from 2023?

A year after being “credited” with 85 sacks, the second most sacks allowed by a team since the NFL began tracking the statistic, the 2024 New York Giants offensive line appears to be on the upswing.

Per Pro Football Focus, the Giants’ 2024 o-line, which, like the 2023 version, went through ten different starting combinations thanks to injuries, finished 23rd in the final rankings. 

That’s a jump of seven slots from where the unit finished in PFF’s 2023 final ranking. 

Zoltan Buday, who ranked the 32 NFL offensive evaluations, said the Giants’ best lineup this year was left tackle Andrew Thomas, left guard Jon Runyan, Jr., center John Michael Schmitz, right guard Greg Van Roten, and right tackle Evan Neal, a combination that ironically never got a chance to play together.

A closer look at the PFF data shows that this line combination was better at pass blocking than run blocking. 

PFF has them down for allowing 21 sacks and 125 total pressures. Schmitz finished with the best pass-blocking efficiency percentage (97.1), and Thomas finished with the lowest (95.9).

Surprisingly, though, Jermaine Eluemunor, who began the season at right tackle before ending it at left tackle, was not included in the five-man “best” combination.

Elumunor, per PFF, allowed 29 total pressures, tying him with Runyan for the second-lowest among the five listed players making up the best combination. Eluemunor was also charged with allowing four sacks, the same as Thomas. 

From a run-blocking perspective, the group's star was Neal, whose PFF run-blocking grade was 80.8, the highest of the 11 offensive linemen the Giants put on the field this season. Runyan’s run-blocking grade (52.3) was ranked out of the Giants’ 11 offensive linemen.  

Overall, though, Carmen Bricillo and James Ferentz, in their first season tasked with overseeing the Giants' offensive line’s improvement, did an admirable job despite the challenges of having to prepare different starting lines for the last 11 games of the season because of injuries. 

That’s not bad, considering the Giants didn’t add any offensive linemen in the 2024 draft, something they’ll probably change this year as they look to build up the unit’s depth.