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Giants OL Jake Kubas Opens Up About Recent Starting Guard Role

The Giants undrafted free agent has gone from being a sideline observer to now turning heads in his first dose of NFL action.

Stephen Lebitsch

New York Giants helmets
New York Giants helmets / Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
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New York Giants guard Jake Kubas may have barely earned his stripes in the NFL, but he certainly is showing them as he earns his first real chance to spar with the professionals. 

It seems about every year towards the end of a dismal season, the Giants discover a new potential secret weapon laying in the depth of their roster. 

Most of the time it has to do with injuries that have dismantled their ranks and forced them to dig into their reserves, and by doing so this season, they’ve found their latest surprise player in the quiet but competitive Kubas.

Signed as an undrafted free agent last May after playing collegiate at North Dakota State, where he started as a walk-on, the Giants never anticipated having to call up their rookie lineman to preserve their offense in the final weeks but held onto him given his solid effort in training camp.

In the first 13 weeks of the season, he was simply an inactive player taking it all in from the sidelines and soaking up the lessons from his veterans and coaches that would elevate his game when his name was finally summoned to the line of scrimmage.

As New York has rounded out the stretch of their disappointing 2024 campaign that sits at 3-13 with one game left to play, injuries have decimated their offensive front and led them to make the inquisitive move to Kubas to compete in the starting line and see what potential he has for the future. 

With four games under his belt after his debut at the start of December, the results have been a highlight of the fourth quarter of the Giants season and some which the guard has credited to hard work and open ears during his days as a sideline observer. 

“Honestly, not that hard,” Kubas told New York Giants On SI about the challenge of being patient for his opportunity to contribute to the team. 

“I try to approach everyday the same, you know, come in here looking to get better at something, get one percent better every day, and the first however many weeks being inactive and all that, it was a great learning experience for me.”

“Getting to learn from guys like (offensive line coach) Carmen (Bricillo), James, and then veterans in our room like Greg (Van Roten) and Jermaine (Eluemunor) and (Aaron) Stinney and (Jon) Runyan. All the guys like it. It's been a really good learning experience for me. So I don't think it was hard at all.”

Typically, being thrown into the flames at an early point in a young player’s career tends to lead to a bumpy start but for Kubas it’s been the exact opposite. 

While other players straight out of college fall victim to the speed of the NFL level, he already felt acquainted with the intensity thanks to the hard work he put into himself and learning the offense behind the scenes in practice.

While on the 53-man roster from the beginning of the season, Kubas was essentially a practice squad member taking in what was necessary to excel as a starting offensive lineman. From cadences to technique and assignments, he was learning from the very best mentors led by Bricillo whose background developing young guys booked him the lead job in East Rutherford. 

With the backfield having their backs against the wall with protectors left to control the line of scrimmage in the final five games, it was time for Kubas to take the training wheels off and take the jump into the starting right guard job as Van Roten shifted over to the center spot and the novice has done of the cleanest jobs of any healthy player remaining on the team.

Kubas’ first game reps came in Week 14 against the New Orleans Saints where his intro to the league was an interesting one. He played in 29 offensive snaps and only allowed two pressures, albeit all felt wiped out when the Bison product was called for an unnecessary roughness penalty on a game-tying field goal attempt that helped seal the Giants fate of a close 14-11 loss. 

However, Kubas, who revealed he’s also been cross-training at center, would bounce back and receive two more spots in the Giants’ Week 16 and 17 duels with the Baltimore Ravens and Indianapolis Colts against whom he played in 114 total snaps and only succumbed to another two pressures. 

In his four starts, he has yet to give up a sack and helped the Giants run to a whopping 45-33 win that featured an offensive explosion they hadn’t seen all season.

It was a sling of performances against some of the league’s better pass rushing units that Kubas slayed with almost an entire row of makeshift offensive line pieces and it was because he didn’t have to learn much on the fly. 

“I had quite a few teammates that I'm close with from college who ended up being starters at this level and I felt like I had a pretty good gauge for what it was gonna be like, just talking to them and knowing the kind of players that they were and how they operated in college,” Kubas said. 

“But you can't ever replicate it with guys who you are going at the college level or whether it's in combine training, whatever it may be. So the first couple weeks training camp was definitely an adjustment speed-wise and the dynamic ability of some of these guys upfront, defensively.”

“I think just ultimately the faster you can get a more full grasp of what we're doing offensively and how we're trying to attack things, I think it allows you to play faster and play more confidently. So as soon as I started to grasp our offense as a whole, I think it allowed me to play a lot faster and be able to make quick decisions on the fly.”

One of Kubas’ teammates most appreciative for his impressive  efforts in the trenches has been quarterback Drew Lock, who thanks in part to his “favorite guys” performances was able to put forth his best passing day as a Giant with 309 passing yards and five total touchdown against the Colts to ice the franchise’s historic 10-game losing streak last Sunday. 

“He’s been great. He’s one of my favorite guys,” Lock said. “Willing to do whatever you ask him to do. Been a great rookie in that room. Just top-notch. One of my favorite guys I’ve been around in the O-line room.”

Even with his recent success, Kubas isn’t letting the fruits of his labor get to his head. He labels himself a cursed perfectionist who always finds things to nitpick after each game that he can do better on in the next. 

He and the Giants have one more opportunity to do that against the Philadelphia Eagles in the season finale and they’ll look to continue on their run that has given the team a more competitive product in both phases that they hope to carry into whatever version of the offense translates into next year. 

For now, there is one thing he knows he’s built up as he approaches his first offseason and will be in the division for a depth role next fall. That is the confidence that he belongs in the NFL and with it  the sky's the limit for a former collegiate walk-on who is drawing the attention of the locker room for being one the rising gritty figures their unit has missed for much of the last decade. 

“Just I think confidence, knowing that I can play at this level,” Kubas said. “I think the last two weeks you're always gonna look back and say, ah, I could be a little cleaner on this. I could be a little cleaner on that.”

“But at the end of the day, I think I held my own. And, you know, I think that's a good stepping stone for me to build for the future.” 

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Stephen Lebitsch
STEPHEN LEBITSCH

“Stephen Lebitsch is a graduate of Fordham University, Class of 2021, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Communications (with a minor in Sports Journalism) and spent three years as a staff writer for The Fordham Ram. With his education and immense passion for the space, he is looking to transfer his knowledge and talents into a career in the sports media industry. Along with his work for the FanNation network and Giants Country, Stephen’s stops include Minute Media and Talking Points Sports.

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