#Shane Lemieux’s importance to Giants only growing

They were there, on the field, in the locker room, in the position group meeting room. Then they were gone.

Two veteran interior offensive linemen, signed to add depth and possibly to challenge for starting jobs, left the Giants suddenly, opting to leave training camp and retire days apart. Joe Looney and Zach Fulton, up and left. It might have prompted a young lineman to wonder: What is going on here?

“I think it’s not my place to say anything about that, but obviously Zach, Joe Looney and all those guys, they’re respected veterans that were in our room,’’ Shane Lemieux said. “These guys played their butt off for 10, nine years. That’s a personal decision. I don’t even want to speak on that. I’m in Year 2, I can’t speak on that because those guys are vets, they’ve seen it all. I’m blessed to have those guys in my room, even for a short amount of time.’’

Will Lemieux make it that far? Will he get close to or into his 30s, still lining up for the Giants, or another NFL team, protecting his quarterback and opening holes for his running back? The odds are always against longevity in the NFL. The pressure to perform is a constant companion. Injuries are always a looming threat. Early success does not always equate to longevity.

It is far too soon to figure out what the Giants have in Lemieux, a 24-year old guard who will be a central piece to their offensive line puzzle. He is the starting left guard, a role he moved into last season after Will Hernandez was put on the COVID-19 list in Week 8. It was thought to be a temporary deployment, but Lemieux never left the starting lineup.

It was an unexpected ascension for Lemieux. He was taken out of Oregon in the fifth round of the 2020 draft. The Giants liked his toughness and anticipated they could fine-tune his pass-protection skills. Lemieux’s arrival in the lineup immediately jump-started the running game, but his pass-blocking alternated between shaky and inconsistent. Head coach Joe Judge liked what Lemieux brought to the field, and there was no significant expenditure in the offseason to replace him with a more experienced player.

This plan nearly went awry when Lemieux had to be carted off the field the first week of training camp, with the very real fear he had suffered a serious knee injury. The Giants were relieved when this was not the case and Judge joked — we think — that Lemieux would cut off his arm if stuck in a bear trap to free himself, a colorful way of saying Lemieux was not going to patiently wait to heal and would do whatever it took to get back into the action.

“Oh, I was mad,’’ Lemieux said of the day he got hurt. “It happened when it happened. I’m just trusting the treatment staff and the plan and the process to get back.

“I didn’t know what to expect. I just trusted what the treatment said, and the doctors and our staff said. I was more concerned at that point about missing the rest of practice, you know.’’

Lemieux, who will sit out Saturday night’s preseason opener, is back, part of the 2020 draft class that is so important to the offensive line plan. Left tackle Andrew Thomas (first round) and right tackle Matt Peart (third round) are second-year players in starting roles, just like Lemieux. He is looking to improve on his rookie year and show the trust in him is justified.

“I think every single year through my football career, every offseason there’s highs and lows,’’ Lemieux said. “There’s things you can take into the offseason. I had some struggles last year, but I think every single year since I was a little kid, I had struggles, so taking them not in a negative view, but saying, ‘OK, this is an opportunity where I can come in and fix my game this year.’ It’s not a negative, don’t put it in a negative. Take it next year and build off of it, and there’s positives to build off of, too, so it’s keeping it even keel. Not taking the bads and not taking the goods, just staying right down the middle and continuing to get better.

“I know what I got to work on, and that’s the biggest key right now is knowing practice to practice where you’re lacking, what you’ve got to work on that day. You can’t focus on 10 different things in practice, you’ve got to focus on one thing so you can get better at it every single day.’’