Andrew Thomas’ former teammate and mentor both see perfect fit with Daniel Jones and Giants

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When Duke running back Deon Jackson was starring for Atlanta’s Pace Academy in the 2015 Class AA state championship game, his left tackle was new Giants No. 4 overall pick Andrew Thomas.

When Jackson became a Blue Devil, his college quarterback in 2017 and 2018 was last year’s Giants No. 6 overall pick, Daniel Jones.

So Jackson has a unique perspective on a pairing the Giants hope will serve as a franchise foundation for the next decade. And he shared that perspective with Jones when the Giants’ QB reached out to ask about Thomas on Friday.

“I think they’ll be two people that really get along well together. I actually told Daniel this yesterday, because he called me and asked me how Andrew is,” Jackson told the Daily News on a Zoom call Saturday morning. “I think they have matching personalities. They’re pretty laid back, both of them. I feel like they’ll connect on the field and off the field.”

On the field, especially, Jackson said Thomas and Jones both are “extremely smart,” and that will help keep Jones clean in the pocket and the Giants’ offense moving the ball.

“They both pretty much know what’s coming on the field before it even happens,” Jackson said. “Daniel did it a lot in college. He always knew what was coming before the ball was snapped. He could always tell what was coming. He and I talked a lot on the field. My being in the backfield, he always let me know a lot of things since I was so young.

“And Andrew,” Jackson continued, “he always knows what looks you’re gonna throw at him, what blitz is coming. He always sees everything before it happens. That’s why he rarely gets beat. So I feel like those two being in the huddle together, they are two smart individuals who are gonna read a lot of defenses and make a lot of plays together.”

Jackson was in the small group of family and friends with Thomas on Thursday night when he got the call from Giants director of college scouting that he’d be the first offensive tackle taken.

And the Duke running back said while Thomas’ top-five selection wasn’t a surprise, it was definitely “surreal.”

“It’s crazy because even back in high school we were always talking about how Andrew was gonna be the first tackle taken whenever he declares for the draft,” Jackson said. “Literally we’ve been talking about this for like six, seven years.”

Just as meaningful, however, is where Thomas’ draft party was held, 30 minutes south of downtown Atlanta in Fayetteville, at the house of a man Thomas refers to with reverence as “my mentor:” Brooklyn-born, Pace Academy offensive coordinator Kevin Johnson.

Thomas was raised in a Christian family by parents Belinda and Andre in Lithonia, 20 minutes east of Atlanta. He was talented and disciplined, an adept musician and drummer who now also plays the piano. And he played several sports, including baseball and basketball.

But Pace head coach Chris Slade — a nine-year NFL linebacker (1993-2001) who played for both Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick on the Patriots — saw a raw but rare talent with a future in football if Thomas committed to it. And so did Johnson.

“Andrew’s mom and dad did a great job raising him, and then (as an athlete) I saw something in him that I’d seen from myself a long time ago but I didn’t have the right people to mold me,” Johnson told the News on the phone Friday. “And what I wanted to do is mold him from a different perspective. I wanted to motivate him to stay hungry — to work hard all the time and be hungry all the time.”

What Johnson quickly found out is Thomas wanted the NFL dream just as badly as he wanted it for him.

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“From day one,” Johnson said, “we wrote a list down: this is what we’re gonna accomplish, year by year. These are the individual goals. And we were checking the boxes. That was part of the goal and part of the blueprint. Thursday night, we checked another box.”

Believe it or not, Johnson recalls Thomas being able to bench press 125 pounds only two times on his first try as a freshman, but that didn’t mean he was only going to stick the youngster in the weight room. Strength would come. The foundation would be work ethic and technique.

“So one day I told him if you’re serious about this, if you want to work out badly enough and get better, you’ll be at my house at 6:15 in the morning,” Johnson said. “I’m an early riser. I get up at 3 in the morning. I like to study teams, to workout, and then I go to the office. I like to win. I know it’s high school, but I like to win. And these are the moments and the reasons why I do it: to see a guy get picked fourth overall.”

Thomas was there at 6:15 a.m. the next day, and Johnson, Pace’s OC and offensive line coach, was ready for him.

“We’d do linemen drills,” he said. “I have a hill over at my home, so we’d kick up the hill and back down the hill. We’d fire off the ball, fire our hips, work on balance. Probably an hour and 15 minute workout. That showed me he was serious.”

Johnson said he made a mistake by taking the rare step of starting Thomas at left tackle as a freshman in the Knights’ pro style offense, where Thomas predictably struggled and his coaches were “hammering him” with instruction, leading to a quick move to right tackle.

But Johnson said Thomas’ intelligence was something to behold even early on.

“Andrew would recognize the blitz coming, see the safety stack over the linebacker and call ‘fire, fire, fire,’ and change the protection,” Johnson said. “And for him to do that was music to my ears.”

Gradually, Thomas grew and became dominant. And in 2015 as juniors, Jackson rushed for 114 yards and three touchdowns in Pace’s 42-21 win over Fitzgerald to capture the Georgia Class AA state championship at the Georgia Dome.

If Saquon Barkley wants to get excited about the Giants’ new rushing attack, he can just listen to Jackson describe Pace’s standard game plan.

“My coach would always run ‘33 Zone’ repeatedly to the left side because Andrew was at left tackle,” Jackson said.

Thomas still had doubters, though, including an unnamed coach connected to the Army All-American Game who told Johnson it was a mistake Thomas had been selected.

“Me being from New York, you know I had to handle it the way I’m gonna handle it,” Johnson, who also coached Jets corner Bless Austin at the youth level in New York, said with a laugh. “So I told (Andrew) to be at my house at 5:15 the morning of the All-American Game so we could get last-minute prep done.”

And the results showed later that day at the All-American practice, including two reps where Thomas dominated future Ohio State standout and Washington’s No. 2 overall pick Chase Young.

“As everyone knows, he dominated the All-American practice,” Johnson said. “And everyone was there, the Chase Youngs, all those guys. And he dominated.”

From there, Johnson credits current Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman, who recruited Thomas to Georgia, for continuing to mold Thomas into the NFL player he’s become.

“The business school was one of the keys to his going to Georgia,” Pittman said of Thomas, who has two semesters remaining. “And with Belinda and Andre, his mom and dad, they have a quality family. They’re quality people. It was easy to develop a relationship with them.”

The doubters faded away once Thomas got to the SEC and began handling the nation’s best on a weekly basis on national TV.

Jackson, the Duke running back, said Slade’s program at Pace Academy definitely had “a somewhat (Bill) Belichick-like structure” to it, with set rules and expectations and organization. So he foresees Thomas acclimating well to Joe Judge’s program with roots in the Patriots Way.

And Johnson said there is no doubt Thomas will fit in, no matter how strict Judge is.

“Because he doesn’t flinch,” Johnson said. “He’s been getting tough coaching since he was in middle school. When he got into Pace, it got even tougher. My philosophy is if you don’t flinch for me, you won’t flinch for anybody.”

Johnson’s son, Kevin, also played quarterback at Richmond in 2016 for Spiders offensive coordinator John Garrett, the brother of Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett. So he knows Thomas is in good hands.

“I think Coach Judge is gonna be the right coach for him, and the Giants are gonna be the right organization for him,” he said, also mentioning offensive line coach Marc Colombo’s pedigree as both an NFL player and coach. “I know what type of guys they are, how smart those guys are. I love Andrew in (Garrett’s) system. I think he’s gonna flourish in their system.”

For so many reasons, those close to Thomas never had a doubt he’d be in this position and now have no doubt he’ll thrive in New York. That doesn’t make this any less surreal or special, however.

“I don’t even have any words for it. We were all just speechless. We were just excited for him,” Jackson said. “We always knew back then that Andrew was gonna be a top five pick. So it’s crazy that it actually happened.”

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