At this point, after one preseason game, there are still many questions about how good the 2026 New York Giants are going to be. Most of those questions have been about how the change in defensive coordinators will help what was an atrocious defense last year; how Jaxson Dart will acclimate to a new offensive coordinator and assistant coaches, especially given John Harbaugh’s desire to have him line up behind center a lot more; where quality play in the secondary is going to come from; and who the heck
is going to be catching Dart’s passes. In the first pre-season game, it looked like the Dennard Wilson defense could be good, especially with rookies Arvell Reese and Jack Kelly flying to the ball; that Dart looks a lot like last year’s version, right down to the visit to the blue tent but also the great TD pass off his back foot to Malachi Fields; that quality secondary play is yet to be found on this roster; and that Fields at least looks like a keeper, maybe OBJ too if any of his quarterbacks notice him beating his defender and throw to him.
One thing we don’t hear much about is the offensive line. That’s for two reasons. First, after years of being among the worst OLs in the league overall, the Giants actually had a fairly good OL last season. Pro Football Focus ranked them 10th in pass blocking and 19th in run blocking, which seems reasonable to me. They were strong at tackle, and both tackles return this season. They were mediocre in the interior, but they used the No. 10 draft pick on Sisi Mauigoa, who is expected to start at right guard. You never know what to expect from a rookie OL (see: Andrew Thomas, 2020), but according to Ed’s reporting from the Greenbriar:
Mauigoa has taken every snap of training camp as the starting right guard. It has certainly looked to the naked eye as though Mauigoa has been meeting or exceeding the bar Harbaugh has set.
Mauigia looked fine in his first preseason game. So the arrow should be pointing up for that particular unit, right?
Not according to everyone, apparently. Football Insights has compiled pre-season rankings of all NFL offensive lines from a variety of sources. Here are the team individual and consensus rankings (compiled before the first pre-season game):
The Giants sit at a mediocre, slightly-below-average No. 19 in the consensus rankings, between the Patriots and the Ravens. As is the case though for teams in the mid-range of any ranking, that usually implies a wide divergence of opinion among individual analysts. The Giants OL’s high ranking, No. 10, is from the FTN (For the Numbers) fantasy site. Their analyst Dan Fornek says about the Giants’ OL:
The effectiveness of the New York Giants’ offensive line hinges on the availability of left tackle Andrew Thomas Thomas played 13 games in 2025, allowing just one sack on a 2.9% pressure rate on 448 dropbacks. In total, the Giants return four starters from a solid group. They also upgraded the right guard position by drafting Miami’s Francis Mauigoa with the 10th overall pick in the NFL Draft. Mauigoa, a center in college, will start his career on the interior.
New York also has three experienced interior offensive linemen (Aaron Stinnie, Daniel Faalele and Lucas Patrick) with developmental tackle prospects (Marcus Mbow and J.C. Davis) waiting in the wings at tackle.
The Giants were a very good unit when Andrew Thomas was healthy in 2025. They enter 2026 as a top 10 group now that they addressed arguably their biggest hole with one of the best offensive line prospects in the 2026 draft class.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Fantasy Points has the Giants’ OL ranked No. 29. Their rankings are behind a paywall, but it’s hard to see that OL being that bad, unless Mauigoa is the second coming of Evan Neal and Andrew Thomas gets injured again.
It could be worse, though. Take the Carolina Panthers. One analyst ranks their OL No. 3, another No. 29. How do two people look at the same group and one thinks it’s among the NFL elite while another thinks it’s awful?
Fortunately at the top and bottom of the consensus rankings we get to see the teams that everyone agrees have the best and the the worst offensive lines. So considering that this 2026 Giants defense is going to have to make its name on the effectiveness of its pass rush, let’s ask: Which 2026 opponents will have the Giants’ pass rushers licking their chops and which may frustrate them the most?
The good news is that the Giants won’t be facing to-o-o many of the NFL’s top offensive lines, but they will see several of the worst. The Eagles (No. 2) always give opposing pass rushers fits, but’s that’s a given for an NFC East team. The worst news is that they face the Rams (No. 6) in Week 2, although the various analysts diverge somewhat in their view of LA’s OL, with PFF and Brandon Thorn not being as impressed as the others. Matthew Stafford is as good as they get when kept clean (95.8 PFF passing grade in 2025) but very ordinary when pressured (68.4). There’s your story line for Week 2.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Giants will face the consensus three worst offensive lines in the NFL this season. Houston’s ferocious defense will be a tough ask for the Giants’ offense, but C.J. Stroud is absolutely neutralized by pressure (81.4 PFF passing grade when kept clean vs. 49.0 under pressure). Likewise, vs. Tennessee in Week 3, Cam Ward graded 70.0 when kept clean but a horrendous 34.7 when pressured. As for Cleveland, we don’t know whether Deshaun Watson or Shedeur Sanders will be the starter, but both graded significantly worse under pressure the most recent season in which each played.
Of considerable interest will be the Giants’ two games against the Commanders. Mike Clay of ESPN has their OL ranked No. 17, the highest of any analyst. However a lot depends on when each analyst did his rankings. PFF has the Commanders dead last in the NFL in their rankings, olely because of the serious injury to Laremy Tunsil:
Before the injury to left tackle Laremy Tunsil, this was a group set to rank just inside the top 20, but the loss of Tunsil for a significant amount of time is a huge blow to the group. There will be an expectation of some improvement from Josh Conerly Jr., and his 59.9 PFF grade in 2025 was fine for a rookie, but this is a unit that could really struggle if Tunsil misses the full season.
Giants fans are all too familiar with that predicament.
