Cut day is the worst day on the NFL calendar and the Giants just handed us a painful reminder of why. Per the original report, New York has released Evan Neal, the seventh overall pick in 2022 and a guy who was supposed to be the solution at tackle for the next decade.

Four seasons. That's it. That's the whole career in blue.

And I know the draft crowd will want to talk about his hand placement and his pass-set angles and all the technical reasons it didn't work, Dave already texted me about the pressure rate, but that's not the part that gets me. The part that gets me is the kid who sat in the green room in 2022 believing his life was about to change. It did change. Just not the way anyone drew it up.

Neal came out of Alabama with one of those can't-miss labels, the kind that gets stamped on maybe three or four guys a draft. Big, mean, multi-position experience in the SEC, a locker-room guy, the whole profile. The Giants were thrilled to get him. Fans were thrilled. He was supposed to protect whoever was behind center for years and instead it became a revolving door of injuries, position switches, and awkward public back-and-forths about criticism he didn't take kindly to.

The low moment might've been the online drama, when he went after fans and media and had to walk it back. That was when you knew the marriage was cracking. When a top 10 pick starts fighting the room instead of winning the job, the clock is already running.

But I keep coming back to the fact that he's still just 25 or so. Giant men who move like that don't just disappear from the league. Somebody will bring him in for a look, probably within days, and maybe a fresh building and a smaller spotlight is exactly what he needs. I've said before those late fliers and reclamation bets are the best value in football, and that goes for teams taking a shot on a fallen top 10 pick just as much as a fantasy manager grabbing a lottery ticket in the last round.

Sometimes the second home is the one that fits.

For the Giants, it's another hole on an offensive line that's had too many of them, and another scar from a draft era they'd probably like to forget. For Neal, it's rock bottom or a reset, depending entirely on what he does next.

If you've watched sports long enough you know how this story can go both ways. The bust label gets peeled off every once in a while, and those are the comebacks I live for. So yeah, I'm rooting for him. Sue me.