The Giants’ search for offensive line help — especially at left tackle after Andrew Thomas’ season-ending injury — has led to a visit with a former first-round pick.
D.J. Humphries, a 30-year-old lineman who spent all nine of his NFL seasons playing left tackle for the Cardinals, will visit with the Giants on Tuesday, according to ESPN.
Humphries hasn’t played in 2024 or signed with a team while recovering from a torn ACL sustained in Week 17 of last season. He was placed on injured reserve before the season finale and released in March.
But Humphries has plenty of experience playing left tackle, and that’s what the Giants need most to avoid reshuffling other parts of their line.
He has started 98 games since Arizona selected him in the 2015 NFL Draft, making a Pro Bowl in 2021.
Joshua Ezeudu started the Giants’ 28-3 loss to the Eagles on Sunday and allowed two sacks, and head coach Brian Daboll didn’t commit to him starting their Week 8 game against the Steelers on Monday.
“We’ll have that discussion here,” Daboll said Monday. “We’ve watched the tape. We’re not there yet. I thought that early on, there was a couple plays in there — one off of a jam, and another one — that could’ve been better. I think he settled in. It was his first time playing, so there’s some things he did better as the game went on and made some improvements and we’ll see where we’re at here.”
Thomas, the franchise left tackle who became an indispensable part of the Giants’ line and then signed a massive extension in 2023 to quantify that value, underwent season-ending foot surgery last week.
In the aftermath of the injury news, Daboll said that “you can’t replace an Andrew Thomas,” but for one week, the Giants attempted to experiment with Ezeudu at left tackle a second time.
The plan went awry early in the first quarter.
But if Humphries ends up signing, it’d be a bit of déjà vu for the Giants. After Thomas injured his hamstring last year and the offensive line was in shambles, they turned to Justin Pugh — a former first-round pick by Big Blue, whose 2022 campaign was cut short by a torn ACL — and signed him for the rest of the season.
He helped plug the left tackle vacancy until Thomas returned, and then he shifted to left guard almost exclusively for the rest of the year while helping stabilize the line.
This time, if the visit leads to a contract, the Giants could bank on Humphries to do the same.
