Jermaine Eluemunor steps into free agency calling himself the best right tackle
jermaine eluemunor has spent years moving through NFL cities, fighting for snaps, and absorbing the verdicts that come with being traded, cut, and questioned. Now, after two seasons with the Giants, he is walking into free agency with a message he says he has repeated to anyone who will listen: he believes he is the best right tackle in the league, and that his film proves it.
Jermaine Eluemunor and the confidence built from being traded and cut
The resume behind the claim is not a straight line. Jermaine Eluemunor entered the league as a 2017 fifth-round pick of the Ravens and started three games across his first two seasons in Baltimore. Before the 2019 season, the Ravens traded him and a sixth-round pick to the Patriots for a fourth-round pick, a move that became part of the story he tells about how quickly a player can be judged.
In New England, his first season included just 29 offensive snaps. He opened the 2020 season as the starting right tackle, then tore an ankle ligament in Week 6 and landed on injured reserve. When he returned to practice, a teammate landed on his ankle again. He later made three starts at left tackle, and described how that stretch, and the pressure around it, pushed him into a breakdown in the office of Patriots trainer Daryl Nelson.
From there, the path kept turning. He signed with the Dolphins ahead of the 2021 campaign, but became a training camp cut. He joined the Jaguars and was released days later. By the regular season, he had caught on with the Raiders, where he started three games in his first year and then became a full-time starter at right tackle in Las Vegas from 2022 through 2023. New York became his next stop, and his most stabilizing one: he started 31 games for the Giants over the past two seasons.
He has described that sequence in blunt terms: practice squad time, being cut twice in one week, being benched, being told he was not good enough, and being mocked online. In the same breath, he has said it shaped him into someone who feels “mentally” unbreakable, and who expects to keep improving until people have “no choice” but to place him among the best at his position.
Giants snaps and the film Jermaine Eluemunor says proves his case
The Giants stint gave his confidence something concrete to point to. He delivered what was described as a standout season, giving up four sacks across a career-high 1, 088 snaps. He also earned a 76. 7 pass-blocking grade from PFF, the best mark he has produced. The context around the evaluation was not unqualified praise: his run-blocking was described as having consistency issues. Still, the same assessment emphasized that he is expected to keep his quarterback upright more often than not.
Those details sit at the center of the way he talks about his play. He has said he craves one-on-one matchups with top pass rushers and feels that anyone who watches the film of those battles will be convinced by his claim. He has also framed his approach as deliberate self-advocacy: making sure people know what he believes he is, and letting the tape serve as the argument.
His view does not exist in a vacuum. Long-established players at the position were noted as potential counterpoints, including Lane Johnson, Penei Sewell, and Tristan Wirfs. Yet the story around Eluemunor is not that he is asking permission to be considered. It is that he is stating his place and inviting teams to weigh it against what he has already put on the field.
Free agency Monday and a payday Jermaine Eluemunor sees coming
Free agency is the hinge point, and the timing is not subtle. Jermaine Eluemunor is set to hit the market after two seasons with the Giants, and the free-agent negotiating window opens on Monday. One ranking placed him 20th in a top 101 free agents list, with Eluemunor described as the top-rated right tackle available and the second free-agent tackle overall, behind Packers tackle Rasheed Walker.
At 31 years old, he has been portrayed as set to get paid, and he has connected that expectation to a wager he made on himself. He took a shorter two-year deal with New York back in 2024, describing it as a way to build momentum and prove his worth. He also explained why the structure mattered: he did not believe he could jump from $3 million with the Raiders straight into the top of the tackle market. So he took what he called a “huge bet” and said he was confident he would come out on top because of his mentality.
That mentality is now being tested in the most straightforward way the league offers: a contract market built on need, evidence, and leverage. Teams will view him through the same journey he has narrated—traded once, cut twice, allowed to walk multiple times, then turned into a steady starter in Las Vegas and New York. The Giants are part of that arc, too, because they gave him the snaps that let him set career highs and stack film that he believes can win an argument in a negotiation room.
In the end, the claim is both simple and loaded: jermaine eluemunor says he is the best right tackle in the league. His career shows what it cost to say that out loud—being moved, dropped, and doubted—before he arrived at a place where he says he cannot be broken. On Monday, when the negotiating window opens, the next chapter will be written in the only language that truly settles a player’s self-belief into reality: the offers that follow the film.
