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Film Room | Matt Peart's Impressive Upside
The Giants drafted two tackles in the first two days of the draft. The first was Georgia’s Andrew Thomas, with the fourth overall selection, who is a mauling run blocker, who will be a solid pass protector, with a very good anchor.
The other is Matt Peart, a UConn product, who has incredible athletic upside but is rather raw in his technique, and who has to add power/anchor and must develop better hand usage to maximize his athletic traits.
Offensive line coach Marc Colombo, and assistant offensive line coach Ben Wilkerson were reportedly very high on Peart and were said to really want Dave Gettleman to draft the player.
It makes sense; Peart fits the Gettleman build in that he's tall and long (99th percentile, 36⅝”, with an 86½” wingspan), athletic, with a lot of upside.
Both Colombo and Wilkerson will look to develop Peart, as the Giants play with Nate Solder at one of the tackle positions through the 2020 season. The ceiling is so high for Peart, but the floor is still low too, and that should be kept in perspective.
All in all, the Giants landed a potential starting offensive tackle, that will excel in pass protection in year two or three, due to his foot quickness, mirroring ability, and overall natural athletic ability, including good bend.
He must clean up his technique, footwork, punch placement/pop, and he has to get stronger at the point of attack.
Watch how effortless it is for Peart to climb to the second level, locate a defender, and position himself in an advantageous spot to minimize the defenders' ability to execute his assignments.
Peart gets low before contact, explodes low to high, rolls his hips and uncoils them to unleash and maximize his power while driving his legs through the defender. Peart's location skills are very good, due to his elite athletic ability.
Senior Bowl Executive Director Jim Nagy said he reminds him of D’Brickashaw Ferguson. Nagy made this statement well before the combine; then Peart does really well at the combine and he has a 77.5% match with Ferguson.
Above is a tweet from Chase Goodbread. It’s only one rep from the Senior Bowl, but it shows some important qualities. Peart is matched up against Wisconsin linebacker Zack Baun.
Peart shows so much discipline here; he doesn’t overset and he displayed excellent reactive quickness to Baun’s inside spin counter move.
Baun gets inside and attempts to bend through the contact of Peart, after initially gaining an edge on Peart, but the latter’s ability to adjust on the fly is superb during this rep. Peart’s able to put his weight on top of Baun and collapse the Badger to the ground before Baun fully wins the round.
I like how Peart unlocks his hips and adjusts to the counter move. Peart is going to have an adjustment period to the NFL’s speed. The athletic upside is too much to ignore, and I’m looking forward to his development under this coaching regime.
