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Make or Break: Can John Michael Schmitz become the player he was drafted to be?

July 3, 2025 by Big Blue View

Cincinnati Bengals v New York Giants
Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images

Schmitz has yet to play up to second-round draft status

There will come a day when the New York Giants offensive line isn’t a significant concern.

Today, however, is not that day.

The Giants had hoped that John Michael Schmitz would step in and solidify their center position early in his career. He was widely considered one of the top two center prospects in his draft class, and a potential first round talent. And while he’s flashed that upside, he has yet to consistently live up to his potential.

The Giants sorely need Schmitz to reach that potential and solidify the interior of their offensive line. This is his second year with offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo and that stability could be the missing piece as he enters his third year.

Will Schmitz make it in 2025? Or, will the Giants need to start scouting centers?

Why he can make it

The traits that made Schmitz a fringe first-round prospect are all evident on tape, and more present on his sophomore tape than his rookie tape.

Schmitz has a good very good size for the position at 6-foot-4, 320 pounds, while also having the requisite athleticism for the position. Schmitz has a flexible lower half and is a natural knee bender. He’s easily able to drop his hips and lower his pads, giving him the leverage to deal with power from nose tackles or blunt speed-to-power rushes from blitzers or looping edge defenders.

He also has very good quickness and agility for a 320-pound man. Schmitz is easily able to redirect or mirror athletic defenders on the interior or pick up A-gap blitzes. He has very solid field awareness and constantly keeps his head on a swivel to look for work. Combined with his movement skills, Schmitz can identify pressure and cover a lot of ground when necessary.


The Buccaneers are showing a double A-gap pressure at the start of the play, and the Gints adjust their protection to account for that. Greg Van Roten picks up No. 90 as he attacks the right A-gap and ushers him around the pocket, freeing Schmitz to account for the (potential) blitzers up the middle. However, both linebackers bail into shallow coverage zones, while safety Jordan Whitehead blitzes off the edge. It’s a really well designed pressure from the Buccaneers, but Schmitz catches the blitz to his right. He’s able to get from the center position to the edge in time to pick up the blitz and let Tommy DeVito get the ball to Malik Nabers for an 11-yard gain.

Plays like that are, obviously, out of the ordinary for a center to have to make. But it does give an example of Schmitz’s athleticism and movement skills, not to mention his awareness.

Much more often, Schmitz will have to mirror athletic defenders on the offensive interior, but the same skills translate inside.


Schmitz also has the requisite play strength to hold up against power rushers, at least as long as he maintains leverage.


Schmitz is matched up agains Jordan Davis playing the tilt-nose here. Davis weighs in at roughly 6-foot-6, 340 pounds, but is highly athletic as well as powerful. Schmitz does a very good job of playing with good knee bend, sinking his hips and pads to maximize his leverage and counteract Davis’ size and strength advantage. Schmitz does a great job of gaining inside leverage to control Davis and prevent him from collapsing the pocket and allowing his teammates to double team the Eagle’s other linemen.

Last season Schmitz also went up against the likes of the Buccaneers’ Vita Vea, the Ravens’ Michael Pierce. And while there certainly were some ugly reps (more on that in a minute), he was able to hold his own when playing with good leverage.

Schmitz’s movement skills and athleticism also make him an effective zone blocking center in the run game. He’s able to stay in phase with his teammates and stress defenses laterally, opening up a menu of options for the Giants’ shifty running backs.


He also is typically effective in double teams, particularly when working with left guard Jon Runyan. Schmitz does a good job of staying hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder with his guard, while his athleticism makes him very effective when working to the second level.

Schmitz isn’t as good a man-gap blocker as a zone blocker, though he’s able to use his leverage and positioning to seal off running lanes.


The Giants favored various zone schemes in 2024, and we could see a balance of inside and outside zone this year.

Why he may not

There are two main reasons why Schmitz might not become the center the Giants drafted him to be.

The first of which is his consistency in technique and leverage. When Schmitz has a bad rep, it’s usually because his technique failed him. As I talked about above, he’s a solid technician and can hold his own against a wide variety of opponents most of the time. However, there are still instances when he is beaten — sometimes badly — and that usually comes down to a technique failure as opposed to a lack of play strength or athleticism.

Those technique failures are usually all downstream of his hand usage. When Schmitz is able to land a good punch and find his opponent’s chest plate, he’s almost always able to at least stalemate if not win the rep outright.

The problems usually start when his punch doesn’t land.

There are instances where he isn’t assertive with his hands, or they land wide, and those rarely end well. Without the jolt from his punch, Schmitz isn’t able to establish leverage and control or have the time to get into his set following the snap. That often allows defenders to swat his hands aside, get under his pads, and drive him back into the pocket.

Here’s a particularly egregious example against Vita Vea and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.


Schmitz is unable to land his punch, and Vea is able to simply run through his attempts to establish leverage without first gaining control of the big nose tackle’s chest plate. Vea gains leverage, gets under Schmitz’s pads, and proceeds to squish DeVito.

There have been complaints from fans regarding Schmitz’s play strength, however those complaints are more accurately directed at leverage. The biggest step forward Schmitz needs to take in his development is in consistently playing with great leverage and technique.

If he can’t take that step forward in consistency, the Giants will have to look at moving on.

The other aspect which could limit Schmitz is the play around him. An offensive line functions as a unit and the best lines are more than the sum of their parts. Unfortunately, there isn’t much Schmitz can do if a line mate misses or fails to lock in a block. There were instances where stunts or twists weren’t correctly handled, and Schmitz was forced to try and block two defenders at once. There were also multiple instances of the Giants’ quarterbacks running themselves into pressure or sacks.


There were also instances where Schmitz found himself crowded by his teammates. It seemed to happen most commonly to his right, where Van Roten’s footwork would prevent Schmitz from correctly mirroring defenders or even become a tripping hazard.

That, obviously, isn’t Schmitz’s fault. However, he did have a bit of a tendency to react poorly if he got crowded, bumped, or tangled. In some cases, that could lead to something of a feedback loop that would be established. The basic loop is that his teammate’s play would interfere with his own, leading to Schmitz’s technique degrading, and the defender taking advantage. That would then lead to a panicked attempt at recovery and his technique to fail further.

That is within Schmitz’s control to limit, and he does need to do a better job of remaining steady and in control if things go awry around him. That too is a part of playing with better consistency.

Final thoughts

Of the players we’ve looked at for this summer’s “Make or Break” series, Schmitz might be the most consequential — at least so far.

Schmitz’s development will have important repercussions in 2025, and well as for 2026 and beyond.

If Schmitz can’t play with more consistency, the offense as a whole could struggle to find consistency. Having a faulty interior could be particularly tough with an undersized quarterback like Russell Wilson. Schmitz failing to take that step forward would also add a need to be addressed in 2026.

However, if Schmitz can take a step forward in his development, raising the “valleys” in his up-and-down play, he can become the center he was drafted to be. This year, having the center position be removed form the list of questions would obviously improve the Giants’ pass protection and run blocking.

One of the notable aspects of Schmitz’s tape was how many more short passes the Giants threw than intermediate and deep passes. Schmitz was on the field for 380 “short” passes of less than 10 yards, while they only attempted 92 intermediate passes (10-20 yards) and 46 deep (20+ yards) passes. They want a more aggressive passing attack, and improved pass protection will open the playbook and allow them to be more explosive.

Looking down the road, the Giants have questions at one of the guard spots and Jermaine Eluemunor isn’t a long-term answer at right tackle. If Schmitz can solidify the center position, that takes a potential need off the board gives the Giants breathing room to figure out the guard and right tackle positions.

Filed Under: Giants

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