Nate Solder inside the building is seen differently from Nate Solder outside the building.
Within the walls of the Giants, Solder is respected as a dominant athlete and moving leader, a durable and reliable player whose performance on the pitch for some reason deteriorated sharply in 2019.
Fans were skeptical when the Giants in 2018 made Solder (then) the highest-paid offensive lineman in NFL history and weren’t too impressed with his work that first season in blue. . These same fans were almost apoplectic watching Solder’s struggles last season, and many of them wanted the Giants to send him packing, erasing his exorbitant money from the salary cap.
The Giants never seriously considered doing it. Instead, they used the No. 4 draft pick to secure Solder’s eventual replacement, Andrew Thomas. There will be an open competition everywhere under new head coach Joe Judge, but Solder and Thomas are expected to be the starting tackles in 2020.
The judge knows what he gets with Solder, more than any other player on his team, except, perhaps, the Patriots’ former special teams, Nate Ebner. Solder arrived in New England in 2011 as a first-round pick. A year later, Judge arrived as an assistant special teams coach. They’ve spent eight seasons together – plenty of time to form a relationship and learn what makes them tick.
“Yeah, I believe in Nate Solder,” the judge recently told The Post. “I’m glad Nate Solder is here. I look forward to working with him in the field. Nate was a great leader for us, Nate works his butt. I’m very happy to have Nate on the team. ”
Had the judge walked in, studied Solder’s rough results in 2019, and determined the Giants were in a better position to leave him, it would have happened – despite the financial ramifications. Jettisoning Solder, 32, two years away from his contract, reportedly slashed the 2020 salary cap by $ 10 million, but left $ 9.5 million in dead money unattractive.
Instead, the Giants advance with Solder. They’ll pay him $ 13 million in base salary and guaranteed bonuses this season, and the hope is that he can recover the form that made him a solid left tackle. The Giants knew they had paid too much (four years, $ 62 million) for a player who had never made a single Pro Bowl, but that was the cost of doing business for the new front office, because he had to make up for the sins (Ereck Flowers) of the past regime.
Solder was the protector of the blind side in Eli Manning’s final year as a full-time starter and Daniel Jones’ first year. In 2018, working with Manning, Solder cleared seven sacks and 33 total presses in 664 pass block shots, according to Pro Football Focus. In 2019, smashing a rookie quarterback, in 684 passing block shots, Solder allowed 11 sacks and 56 total pressures – the third-highest number of sacks and most pressures dropped in the league.
Granted, part of this drop is only on Solder. More than a flash, however, can be attributed to the normal difficulties Jones, in his first season, encountered in his pocket – in removing the ball from his hand and acknowledging what was going on around him.
“People want to bullshit all over Nate Solder, [but] Nate Solder is a hell of a football player, ” former Giants center and current NFL Network analyst Shaun O’Hara told The Post. “It’s a hell of a good left tackle. You show me a left tackle that had a good year with a rookie quarterback. It does not happen.
“[Solder] won a Super Bowl with the Patriots, he was at one point one of the top five left tackles in the league. This does not happen without having some skill. Now, has he been beaten several times in the past few years? Yeah. The problem is when he got beaten, they were beaten for bags. I think Nate Solder is still a hell of a good football player. ”
General manager Dave Gettleman signed Solder to the exorbitant contract and admits, “Nate has had a tough year. Nobody denies it, and certainly not. ”
Rich Seubert, a starting goalie on the 2007 Super Bowl team, is now a Giants membership holder.
“I like Solder. He plays hard, he’s a good football player, ”said Seubert. “Obviously, we all want him to play better. He will, he will find out. Maybe the system wasn’t for him, maybe it will be better now. ”
In addition to breaking into a new quarterback, Solder has also been tasked, over the past two seasons, with mentoring young left guard Will Hernandez. Everyone should be acclimated better now. Not that Solder ever relied on anything other than his own results to justify or explain his struggles.
Teammates, of course, support each other, and in the front office there is overwhelming and sincere interest in seeing Solder regain his form. They appreciate that the imposing 6 foot 8 inch weld contributes to their openness. Since his arrival, he has started all 32 games and, despite an assortment of bumps and bruises, has stayed on the field for 2,037 of the 2,094 possible attack shots. Now they need him to play a lot better than he did in 2019.
“I’ve known Nate, I’ve known him for years,” said Judge. “I know what he’s capable of, and I know [offensive line coach] Marc Colombo will work his butt with Nate, and I know that Nate will work as hard as possible to be the best player possible. I am delighted to see him in the field. ”
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