Getty Will Hernandez #71 congratulate TJ Jones #80 of the New York Giants after Jones' touchdown during the fourth quarter of the game against the Buffalo Bills.
Left guard Will Hernandez entered the 2020 NFL season as the New York Giants‘ longest-tenured starter. However, a positive COVID-19 test in late October halted the former second-rounder’s consecutive start streak at 39 games, while simultaneously rewriting the trajectory of his Giants’ career.
Selected with the No. 34 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, the UTEP product was quickly tossed into the fire for Big Blue. Hernandez drew the start at left guard in his first-ever NFL game and never looked back, proceeding to log 2,523 consecutive offensive snaps at the position — that is, until his two-game stint on the COVID-19/Reserve list.
Hernandez’s absence allowed the Giants to get a closer look at first-year player, Shane Lemieux. The 2020 fifth-round pick started both games at guard, and while he didn’t exactly grade out favorable from an analytics standpoint (32.2 overall PFF grade), he showed enough to keep a re-activated Hernandez on the bench.
After playing 100% of the team’s offensive snaps over his first 39-career games, Hernandez went on to play just 95 total snaps over the final seven games of 2020. Now, with Lemieux seemingly entrenched as the team’s starter moving forward, Big Blue could very well be moving off of one of their roster mainstays in the coming months.
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Hernandez ‘Could be Cut’?
First and foremost, Hernandez will likely be given an opportunity to fill the void left behind by veteran Kevin Zeitler at right guard, who was an offseason cap causality. With that said, the team did add veteran Zach Fulton in free agency, a 90-game career starter. Hernandez, on the other hand, has never logged a single snap at the position over his three-year NFL career. If he ultimately fails to edge out Fulton in camp, it could be sayonara.
This is why Bleacher Report’s Alex Kay has labeled Hernandez as the Giants’ “best player who could be cut” this offseason. Here’s what the B/R columnist had to say:
The Giants appeared to have found a stalwart left guard when they drafted Will Hernandez early in the second round in 2018, but his promising career went off the rails a bit in 2020…
The G-Men were able to plug in Shane Lemieux effectively, although the rookie did have issues with pass protection at times. His development and perceived better fit for the offensive line could make Hernandez an expendable asset for the club, which would save $2.2 million by releasing the fourth-year guard this offseason.
Andrew Thomas the Key to New York’s Success in 2021?
While Hernandez’s future in East Rutherford is murky at best, the team will be reliant on a different former early draft pick to help steer their offensive line in the right direction this coming season.
“The offensive line is the X-factor for the season, and last year’s first-round pick [Andrew Thomas] will be a major key to its success. If he can make a leap in Year 2, so can the unit and so can the team,” wrote Giants.com’s Dan Solomone.
Thomas endured his fair share of “welcome to the NFL” moments early on in his rookie campaign. However, the ex-Georgia Bulldog began to live up to his draft status as the season went on, posting a 70.0-plus pass-blocking grade in all but one of the team’s final eight games.
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