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INDIANAPOLIS – Tough love.
This is what the Giants showed Kayvon Thibodeaux this week as they sat him down for an interview to see what makes one of the top edge rushers in the 2022 NFL Draft tick.
The Giants need a pass rusher and Thibodeaux is one of the best available. He is expected to come off the board behind only Aidan Hutchinson of Michigan. The Giants have the No. 5 and No. 7 overall picks in the first round. There is a good chance Thibodeaux is sitting there when the Giants are on the clock at No. 5.
The concern about him is not athletic. Teams want to know about his drive, his love of the game and if he is already too much of a superstar in his own mind.
Count the Giants as having these concerns.
“Yeah, I’ve talked to the Giants, we had a great interview,’’ Thibodeaux said Friday at the scouting combine. “They were kinda on me, they were giving me a hard time, but I felt like it was like that big brother moment where they give you a hard time because they’re interested in you and they like you. For me, just showing them that I’m really a guy, I grew up in a big city so a big city is nothing new to me, right?’’
What does “giving me a hard time’’ mean?
Thibodeaux, who is from Los Angeles, smiled.
“I mean, just giving me a hard time, like when you bring up what’s gonna happen if I’m not the star coming in, five games in if I don’t have a sack this is what they’re going to be talking about,’’ Thibodeaux said. “The media’s gonna be down on me, everybody’s gonna be – I’m gonna be in the doghouse, how am I gonna hold that.
“I let them know I’ve been in the media since my sophomore year of high school. So I’ve been trained for this my whole life and I know that most of it is entertainment, right? So I’m not really worried because whatever happens between the four walls of the team and the organization is what’s gonna dictate the future and if I have five bad games we’re gonna focus on that next week, how we’re gonna dominate the team that’s next.’’
The Giants had only 34 sacks last season.
Thibodeaux said he also met with the Jets, the interview coming Friday morning. He said he felt the Jets – who own the No. 4 overall pick – are interested in him.
“I mean, it was great,” Thibodeaux said of his meeting with the Jets. “Just breaking down film, they loved how I could break down and articulate pass rush, run scheme film. So they’re really interested in me as well. I’m excited to see how, and they even asked me too, how would it feel if I wasn’t taken No. 1, and like I said, it’s just all about what I could do to contribute to a Super Bowl, what I can do to contribute to a winning team and help cultivate a winning culture.”
Thibodeaux had 19 sacks in three seasons at Oregon. He had seven sacks in 2021, playing on a sprained ankle much of the season.
Asked about his love of the game, Thibodeaux said NFL teams should not be worried about his dedication.
“I don’t think I necessarily had to convince teams of it, but that’s the media narrative,’’ Thibodeaux said. “I’m an L.A. kid and if you know the adversity I went through to get here and the things I had to sacrifice and the things my mother had to sacrifice for me to get here you’d really understand how I feel in my heart. When you talk about fire, you talk about passion, I can’t really explain it. I get emotional thinking about it because of all the sacrifices it took me to get here. I’m blessed to be here.’’
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