Evan Neal: Assessing his play vs. Jets

Evan Neil saw his first action of the preseason against the Jets and he surrendered a brutal sack that placed him in an all too familiar position the ey of New York Giants Nation what's going on everyone Nick Fato here to go over some Evan Neil tape and honestly there are some good takeaways to glean from the third-year offensive lineman who played 21 snaps before his removal when he was rolled up on after the game Neil said he was fine that the Giants only planed to play him on 20 to 25 snaps although the Giants will run precautionary tests most likely on Monday has Evan Neil lived up to his seventh overall draft selection no of course not but I'm just looking for developmental Baby Steps From The Young 23-year-old offens of linman and I'll make the case that we reive tiny signs of that on Saturday night let's get into the film the issues that Neil has seen throughout his career dealing with speed in pass protection as a tackle they manifested in this game as we saw with the sack and as we'll go over in a little bit but the brute strength and force that Evan Neil has at his size combined with his ability to work these combo these Duo blocks is something that could be an asset if he is ever kicked inside with Carin Brillo coaching this offensive line Neil and Jaylen Mayfield are going to work this combo double team on this Double Y side meaning two tight ends to the right side of the offense formation run you see the Jets stack that strength stack the Clos side of the line of scrimmage Allen Robinson motions in and you're going to watch Evan Neil who's going to block down on a foury along with jayen Mayfield they both make contact they get hip to hip this is something Neil has been doing a good job and I feel like he did a good job in his first two years as well as a run blocker especially when the Giants got creative and used Andrew Thomas and nean Neil next to each other get hip to hip and then drive through you see how the linebacker penetrates Mayfield has to abandon tanzel smart and that allows Evan Neil to put all of his beef into tanzel smart and drive him into the deck like a cudie board I want to eat a kuchi board throw back to Hard Knocks but we saw a couple plays like this in the game where Evan Neil was able to finish his block with an aggressive nature and throw his assignment to the deck this was the first play of the game and here is the second play of the game we're going to get a similar play style where he going to get hip to hiip both going to contact tanzel smart again Mayfield's going to flash his eyes and his numbers to 55 the linebacker and that allows Evan Neil to finish this block and he does drives him down the line of scrimmage washes him away and then you have Dante Miller run right off the backside of Evan Neil not a huge game but Evan Neil does his job here and you can see how he tries to get low into contacts very difficult Evan Neil is 6'8 tanel smart is 6'1 that's a gigantic difference and Evan Neil is able to contact smart and a smart tries to get skinny through that b Gap Neil just turns his feet and uses his strength Mayfield also does a good job to use that outside arm to maintain contact to not allow smart to get square and possibly slip through the B Gap but this is a good block by Evan these are two consecutive good blocks by the New York Giants third-year offensive lineman now we're going to see him kick out into space a little bit this is a vertical set and it's going to be a little flare pass towards Evan Neil's side Evan Neil meets Tac McKinley up the arc look at Neil does not the fleetest of foot usually opens his hips way too early we'll see that in a little bit here he opens his hips but he's able to make contact and allow the F pass to get off now we see Neil with another vertical set against Tac McKinley gain depth gain depth gain depth lowering the contact absorb the contact you see how he gets pushed back that's something about Evan Neil you would imagine that somebody who is 330 pounds with his type of size with his type of stature would be an absolute anchor of brick wall in pass protection he's not necessarily that but he does his job here he absorbs the contact his hands are on the outside but he just gets walked back into the pocket a little bit I don't think for someone his size he has the anchor that we would desire there's a lot about Evan Neil that has not been actualized when it comes to his offensive tackle skills he has not developed in that area to be fair to him he's been injured a lot throughout his career but it seems unnatural for him and that begs the question is he better off at playing guard a lot of these blocking reps would suggest so but keeping your hat low at offensive guard when you're 6' eight it's not necessarily an easy Fe to say the least here's another good job by him and Mayfield Mayfield does a good job contacting 51 turning 51 and then Neil slides his hips in front of 51 gets his hands to the inside as you can see complete control of 51 wash him down the line of scrimmage this is third rep in his first what five six snaps I think this is the fourth rushing snap so he has three snaps where he cleanly wins the rep off of a double team now he had the double team but when you run a Duo based system when you run a lot of inside Zone whenever you run at all there are a lot of double teams up front and Neil's handling himself well at tackle but these skills are transferable to playing guard I love when you can get Evan Neil free release up to the second level and Neil gets a free release I also love this run design I'm not breaking down the Run designs too much on this on this quick video but watch how Tommy deino opens up to his right yak Johnson goes in the other direction and you'll watch Joshua Kelly also open up to Tommy DeVito's side receive the handoff and watch how the entire Jet's defense crashes down Evan Neil's up to the second level you have John Michael Schmidt's assist along with Jake kubis to bury this two ey this one technique and Joshua Kelly is able to find that cut back Lane because all those Jets Defenders see how the play is getting set up because Tommy deito opening in that direction fullback is going in the opposite direction and then 55 and 57 are going to get accounted for by kubas and yakob Johnson and 39 is in contain 39 gets too far up field and then Josh zudo just washes his assignment down the line of scrimmage the Giants did a really good job throughout the preseason and the training camp varying up their rushing attacks and little things like this are fine adjustments when you had the Jets run plays like this one which came earlier in the drive when the Jets are going to slant and stunt their defensive line to the left in an attempt to shoot gaps you can see how the Jets were able to Dante Miller on this play and Evan Neil on this play actually gets his feet Tangled Up goes for that double team block this was a great adjustment by Robert Salah and the defense of the New York Jets you see Neil misses his assignment steps in front of Jaylen Mayfield and then gets turned around then just to keep the Jets honest a little bit they show like they're running to the right the strength of the formation and then hit the weak side hole behind yakob Johnson I think a fullback allows you to open up different holes in the Russian game throws you back to the 1990s a little bit right now we're going to see Ean Neil again work double team and this run gets bounced outside but you can see how he is winning Mayfield climbs 55 51 is turned again how many times are we going to see a Jets defensive lineman their shoulder be attached to the chest of Evan Neil with Evan Neil driving and washing that defensive lineman down the line of scrimmage so you're seeing good footwork you're seeing solid leverage overall you're seeing strength at the point of attack now to to be fair Neil's going up against Fringe roster players for the New York Jets so we have to keep that in mind take that into account but Neil hasn't played football in a while he's recovering from injury he doesn't look 100% or he doesn't really look spry quick or overly explosive but he also hasn't really looked like that over the last two years although he wasn't really healthy there in those times too a lot of variables here ladies and gentlemen but you're seeing solid combo work from Evan Neil I wish we got to see him at guard a little bit and here we see a passet where he doesn't surrender to sack he's on an island though you see the Giants are going to slide slightly to the left because they have four guys the twoy shade on Evan Neil side and over so Neil is going to be isolated against Eric watts does a good job look not necessarily a vertical set sets on a good angle gets Square to Target but he gets pushed back a little bit right you want to seem a more sturdy anchor but he's able to frame up the block and not lose around his outside shoulder that's all we're asking for at this point but next play Tac McKinley little bit more of an explosive player evanal said he Mis chose his angle his set angle and he goes a little bit more vertical here maybe he wanted to flatten out to meet Tac McKinley to not allow Tac McKinley to have such easy access through the outside shoulder of Evan Neil which resulted in this sack of Tommy DeVito you could see what is that one two on that second foot before that third foot's down Evan Neil's hips are opening up and Tac McKinley is dipping that inside shoulder and bending around just giving Tac McKinley a softer angle to Corner into the pocket and Sack Tommy DeVito at that's very poor technique by Evan Neil it's not a good set Evan Neil was right he did not use great judgment on that set but then once that set was already underway his hand usage and his attempt to prevent Tac McKinley from bending around the edge was an issue and this is this has been a critical vulnerability of Evan Neil's game throughout his time as a professional NFL athlete it's one reason why a lot of giant fans are talking about hey this guy needs to be moved inside to go if you can't protect your outside shoulder we have a problem now Andrew Thomas had that same issue when he was a rookie towards the end of his rookie year you started seeing him come into his own a little bit and now we're in year three with Evan Neil and we're still having these same problems and the Giants have answers now at right tackle begs the question when or if the Giants will move Neil inside and give him a realistic shot to earn some snaps there or will they play 34y Old Greg van Ron instead or Aaron stinny guess we'll have to wait and see but that was a poor play by Evan Neil but it was one of his only very poor plays you have other plays like this one where look he gets in front of the defensive lineman and then 55 breaks away from Mayfield but if 55 doesn't break away from Mayfield as he does Dante Miller might be able to hit that hole right behind Evan Neil's very large backside right 79 smart does a good job keeping Neil off of him like you want to see Neil win this rep initially Neil allows smart to get inside very easy for smart to do that because he's six foot one Neil 6 foot eight you can see how Smart's hands just attack Evan Neil's breastplate well before Evan Neil gets his hands into smart and you can see Evan Neil's feet are not in the ground he's still trying to gain positioning a little bit step behind so very good reactive play by tanzel smart then Neil is high nature gets pulled down but he's able to reestablish himself in the ground by that point 55 is making the tackle on Dante Miller this isn't a great rep from mean Neil not a complete and utter loss and I just say that because he was able to reestablish himself but still not anything to write home about here we got another vertical set from Evan Neil see how he sets 58 is trying to set Neil up Neil exercises a little bit of patience here on an island because Johnson's V so it's just Neil you see Neil's hands ready to attack ready to attack then he attacks makes contact and on the contact he's able to push 58 upward I wouldn't say it's the cleanest contact but it's contact and he gets in his way that's all you're asking for ler Taylor just absolutely put Austin schlotman down on this play Austin slotman does a freaking split here when Leonard Taylor goes right around for that first sack got three sacks in a row here and none of them are really Evan Neil's fault Evan Neil gets blamed for some of this this wasn't necessarily on Neil I think there was one play where Neil definitely did not help the situation but on this block does a good job against 58 meets 58 keeps his hand keeps his inside hand ready to assist Jaylen Mayfield kicks out in the space and just stands up 58 then on the second rep it looks like 58's about to turn the corner as Eric Watts by the way 58 but Evan Neil does a good job basically throwing him up the pass rushing Arc and allowing Tommy deido to step up into the pocket on this play one two three still Square now he's going to meet 58 makes contact if there's one thing that Evan Neil needs to work on is that outside shoulder I feel like he just too frequently opens his hips and allows these pass rushers to run right through the outside shoulder it's an issue in his game and on this play it looks like he's about to but 73 big old Evan Neil tosses him out of the club Tommy Deo ends up getting sacked there's a good recovery from Evan Neil then here again it's not great but it's not Evan Neil's fault necessarily he met Watts gets a push Watts lands that long arm and then pushes Neil back but Tommy DeVito is getting sacked from the other side CU Josh audo gets pushed back the offensive line just kind of collapsed at this point three sacks in a row is not a winning formula at all but this isn't necessarily on Evan Neil although you want to see a sturdier anchor you want to see better hand placement the feet aren't terrible but not perfect either just generally speaking in pass protection throughout this game more so off judgement and he's not the most Fleet of foot Evan Neil but overall after we saw and we witnessed that sack happen we all believed Evan Neil had a terrible game and I don't think he had a terrible game I think there are certainly positive takeaways here a lot of them are based off of his run blocking but you even had a couple pass protection reps where he met the pass rusher up the arc his hands were not crisp or perfect I do believe like I said a little bit earlier the anchor needs a little bit of work but the framing of the block was at least there outside of the sack that he surrendered and at this point I'm not looking for Evan Neil to play like a seventh overall draft selection if he ever reaches that ceiling gravy absolute home run considered a Grand Slam at this point I just want Evan Neil to be a functional football player somebody the New York Giants can plug into the lineup and he's not a complete disaster not a complete liability and right now and a lot of giant fans feel this way so this is not a hot take I don't believe the potential of that reality is at tackle it's more than likely at guard and there were parts of this tape right here the 21 plays where you saw traits that seemingly translate to playing offensive guard just the duo blocking the combo blocking it's going to be difficult with that high hat that Evan Neil has but at this point him playing tackle is a work in Project and you can continue to work at that but but it just seems like Evan Neil needs to be precise with his feet on almost every rep when he is going up against a speed type of rusher somebody who is coming from a wide angle who can bend rusher like Brian Burns I think Evan Neil must have precise footwork and above average to very good hand placement on the majority of those reps to not lose and to not get Beat Around down his outside shoulder and in the NFL when you're going up against some of the best athletes in the world it's very difficult to be on your game 100% of the time to be that consistent now to be fair to Evan Neil again and I brought this up like two times already it's hard to get that consistent when you are injured so frequently so he needs to stay on the field to develop some sort of consistency at whatever position the New York Giants believe he should Thrive and believe he should be trained at and part of me does believe that might be at guard at this point but I don't want to overreact because I understand this is his first game action for a while it's just when he's in pass protection you can't have that liability on Third and six plus to not protect your right shoulder you can't have a tight end or a running back consistently help you makes your offense way too predictable allocating assets to somebody who can be a vulnerability to your offensive strategy and at this point that's what Evan Neil is when he's going up against starters at right tackle I hope that can be rectified but I am not overly confident that it will will be but I hope you guys enjoyed this video maybe we'll see Evan Neil at tackle I would love if he can seize the day there Avenge Sevenfold style or we might just see at guard I'm unsure but I hope you guys enjoyed this tape and this quick breakdown I am Nick Fato signing off please have a lovely day