New York Giants offensive tackle Evan Neal is headed toward free agency after the 2025 NFL season. Giants general manager Joe Schoen said during his post-draft press conference on Saturday the team had declined its option for a fifth season on Neal’s contract.

After earning consensus All-American recognition as Alabama’s left tackle in 2021, Neal joined the Giants as the seventh selection in the 2022 NFL Draft.

Like all first-round picks, Neal signed a four-year contract with a team option for a fifth season. Of his original $24.551 million deal, Neal still has a $1.1 million base salary and a $2.953 roster bonus (due the third day of training camp) coming in 2025.

If the Giants had used the fifth-year option, they would have guaranteed Neal a $16.685 million payday for the 2026 season 16 months before that campaign starts. The fifth-year option figure is the average of the third- through 25th-highest salaries among offensive linemen over the past five seasons

Now Neal’s contract will expire at the end of the NFL’s 2025 business year in March, when he will become an unrestricted free agent.

Neal has played in 29 of New York’s 51 regular-season games in the past three years.

After missing four games in 2022 and 10 games in 2023, Neal had ankle surgery on Jan. 2, 2024, spent the first three weeks of training camp on the physically-unable-to-perform list and opened the 2024 season as the backup to free-agent signee Jermaine Eluemunor at right tackle.

Neal returned to the starting spot on Nov. 10 when Eluemunor moved to left tackle after Andrew Thomas sustained a season-ending injury.

With Thomas and Eluemunor returning for 2025, the idea of moving Neal to guard has been discussed, but coach Brian Daboll declined to detail the Giants’ plans at Saturday’s press conference.

“We haven’t been on the practice field yet,” Daboll said. “We have an idea of what we’re going to do. He’ll be flexible. He’ll do anything he can do to help the team.”

The Giants’ draft picks over the past three days included one offensive lineman – Purdue tackle Marcus Mbow, who was a fifth-round selection.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.