Evan Neal: Career, Stats, and What Went Wrong with the Giants’ No. 7 Pick

Evan Neal and the New York Giants: Four Years, 29 Games, and a Career That’s Still Unresolved

Evan Neal signed a four-year, $24.55 million fully guaranteed rookie contract when the Giants took him seventh overall in 2022. In March 2026, he re-signed with the same team on a one-year veteran minimum deal. That gap, between what he was expected to become and what he’s actually done, is the whole story.

Background and Early Life

Neal was born September 19, 2000, in Okeechobee, Florida. He started at Okeechobee High School, then transferred to IMG Academy in Bradenton – the same pipeline that’s produced dozens of NFL first-rounders – where his recruitment took off. He was ranked the 4th-best offensive tackle prospect in the country for the class of 2019 and played in the Under Armour All-America Game before enrolling at Alabama.

His football bloodlines are legitimately unusual. His cousin Cleveland Gary was the 26th overall pick in 1989 and played six seasons as a running back for the Rams and Dolphins. His uncle Jimmie Jones was a third-round pick in 1990, played defensive line for Dallas, St. Louis, and Philadelphia, and won two Super Bowl rings with the Cowboys. His father Eddie played linebacker at Tulane. For Neal, football wasn’t something he stumbled into.

Three Years at Alabama

What made Neal a top-10 pick was three years of starting at three different positions for one of college football’s most demanding programs. As a freshman in 2019, he started all 13 games at left guard. The following year he moved to right tackle and started 12 games – blocking for an offense that ranked first in the Power 5 in scoring (48.5 points per game) and first in pass efficiency. He missed one game that season due to a positive COVID test. That was the only game he missed across three college seasons.

His 2021 campaign at left tackle was the one that put him on draft boards as a potential No. 1 overall pick. He started all 15 games, was elected a permanent team captain, led the team with 34 knockdown blocks, and earned consensus All-American honors from the AFCA, FWAA, The Sporting News, Walter Camp, CBS Sports, ESPN, and USA Today. The AP named him second-team. Alabama’s offense that year ranked sixth nationally in scoring (39.9 points per game) and seventh in passing (338.2 yards per game). After the season he announced he was skipping his senior year.

40 starts. Three positions. Zero missed starts due to injury. That’s the college resume that made scouts lose their minds.

The 2022 NFL Draft and What It Promised

The Giants used the pick that became No. 7 as part of a package they’d received from Chicago for Justin Fields in 2021. CBS Sports analyst Pete Prisco called Neal “the best tackle in the draft” the night he was selected and predicted he’d go to “a lot of Pro Bowls.” His combine measurables backed up the hype: 6-foot-7.5, 337 pounds, 34-inch arm length, 6-foot-11 wingspan. He declined to run the 40, which draft analysts noted but didn’t penalize him for – he’d gone to Alabama to prove himself in games, not timed drills.

The vision in New York was a bookend tackle duo with All-Pro Andrew Thomas on the left and Neal on the right. Daniel Jones would finally have real protection. What happened instead is one of the more confounding stories in recent Giants draft history, and that’s saying something given the franchise’s track record.

Career Season by Season

2022: Rookie Year

Neal started the season at right tackle and showed flashes. Through six weeks he’d allowed just five pressures and one sack – workable numbers for a rookie adjusting to NFL pass rushers. Then in Week 8 against Jacksonville he suffered a Grade 2 MCL sprain. He came back too soon. The second half of his season was rough: 8 sacks allowed and 52 pressures by year’s end. The Giants went 9-7-1 and made the playoffs, but Neal wasn’t a reason for it.

2023: The Year That Settled the Debate

This is where the bust conversation became hard to dismiss. Neal allowed 11 sacks according to Sports Info Solutions, third-most in the league among tackles. He blew 24 blocks at a four percent rate. The Giants declined to pick up his fifth-year option – a decision that sends a clear signal about where a franchise stands on a first-round lineman after just two years. He was placed on injured reserve December 24 with rib and hip problems. The season also produced the fan incident: after getting booed, Neal told reporters fans criticizing him should be “flipping burgers.” He posted an apology the next day. The damage with the fanbase was real and it didn’t fully go away.

2024: Some Progress, More Interruption

Neal spent most of the summer on the PUP list after ankle surgery, wasn’t activated until August 11, and then played in nine games with seven starts. Career-low 459 total snaps. But here’s the number worth noting: his Pro Football Focus overall grade for 2024 was 61.2, a career high. His run-blocking grade was 80.8. Pass protection stayed ugly (49.6, with 17 pressures and two sacks allowed) but at least one part of his game was trending up.

2025: Another Season That Didn’t Happen

The Giants moved Neal to guard – returning him to the position he’d played as a freshman at Alabama – and for stretches of camp it looked like it might work. He said he was “grateful” for the opportunity. Then a hamstring injury landed him on IR in November. He had his 21-day return window opened, practiced, and was shut back down days later when back and neck soreness emerged. He never played a regular-season snap. His career totals at the end of the year: 29 games played, 27 starts, 12 sacks allowed. His career pass block win rate of 82.9% – per ESPN’s metrics – would rank last among all qualifying offensive linemen over that same span.

Why the Injury Record Matters More Than People Acknowledge

The easy take is that Neal is soft or unlucky. The more honest one is that he has been placed on injured reserve or the PUP list in every single season of his NFL career without exception. 2022: IR (MCL). 2023: IR (ribs, hip). 2024: PUP list (ankle). 2025: IR (hamstring, then back and neck). That’s not a coincidence or a run of bad luck. It’s a pattern that the Giants’ front office clearly weighed when they declined his fifth-year option and that any future employer will need to account for.

The counterargument – that he never had a clean, healthy year to actually show what he could do – is also true. You can hold both of these things at once. He played through a partial MCL tear in 2022, which inflated his sack numbers. His 2024 run-blocking grade with a surgically repaired ankle was genuinely solid. But there’s no version of this career so far where the injury history isn’t a central part of the story.

The Position Change: Tackle to Guard

The Giants moved Neal inside in the spring of 2025, and the logic was real. As a freshman at Alabama in 2019, he was outstanding at left guard – 13 starts, no missed games, blocking for an offense that allowed only 11 sacks all season with Mac Jones at quarterback. The theory was that returning him to an interior role would eliminate the wide-edge pass rush matchups that exposed his footwork and let him play to his obvious physical strengths: 340 pounds, long arms, excellent hand punch.

The Mekhi Becton comp came up immediately, and it wasn’t unfair. Becton went from being a failed first-round tackle for the Jets to winning a Super Bowl as a guard with Philadelphia. Ereck Flowers, another Giants first-round bust at tackle, eventually found a career as an interior lineman. Neither is a guarantee, but they’re meaningful data points. What gets me about the Becton comparison is that Becton made the transition while still in his mid-20s and had a full healthy season to build into it. Neal attempted the same move but never got a full season to prove it could work.

Is Evan Neal a Draft Bust?

His career pass block win rate ranks last. The Giants declined his fifth-year option. His former head coach chose a journeyman veteran over him for the starting job. By those measures: yes, unambiguously, he has underperformed a No. 7 overall pick to a degree that qualifies as a bust.

The Andrew Thomas parallel is worth taking seriously, though. Thomas was a disaster in 2020 as a rookie left tackle – routinely beaten, openly mocked in New York media, talked about in exactly the terms people now use for Neal. By 2022 he was first-team All-Pro. Neal was drafted partly on the reasoning that Thomas showed Alabama tackles could develop slowly. Three years later, Thomas had become elite. Four years in, Neal hasn’t.

There’s also a distinction between “bust” as in “this player was never good” and “bust” as in “this player failed to become what the pick required.” Neal has shown real ability in short stretches. He was a legitimate All-American at the hardest program in the country. He didn’t fail because he couldn’t play football. He failed, so far, because he couldn’t stay on the field long enough to develop, and when he was on the field his pass protection was a problem that coaches couldn’t solve. Whether that makes him a bust depends on whether you think the injuries were circumstantial or a fundamental fitness issue. The Giants, by re-signing him on a minimum deal in March 2026, appear to believe the former – or at least are willing to bet $1.3 million on it.

The Re-Signing Under John Harbaugh

When new head coach John Harbaugh arrived in New York before the 2026 season, the expectation was that Neal would hit free agency and find a fresh start somewhere else. Instead, after two days in free agency with essentially no market, he signed back with the Giants on a one-year veteran minimum deal. Harbaugh had been high on Neal’s college tape during the 2022 predraft process – when Harbaugh was still coaching Baltimore – and reportedly wasn’t willing to give up on a player with that physical profile.

Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy’s offense favors big, physical interior linemen who can drive defenders off the ball. At 6-foot-7 and 340 pounds, Neal checks every physical box. The question the 2026 season has to answer is whether the physical profile finally translates in a system built for it, with a coaching staff that chose him rather than inherited him.

Right guard is currently open. That’s his shot. Neal will turn 26 in September 2026. This is, realistically, the last contract where upside is being sold rather than decline being managed.

Career Stats at a Glance

PFF grades are available to subscribers and fluctuate slightly across methodologies. The 2024 run-blocking figure of 80.8 is the most encouraging number in his NFL file. Pass-blocking has never graded above 50 in a full sample.