Giants 2021 roster profile: DT David Moa

The New York Giants would seem to have enough capable, experienced interior defensive linemen. That means David Moa, a practice squad player last season, would seem to have a large mountain to climb to make the roster.

Let’s learn more about Moa as we continue profiling the 90-man roster the Giants will bring to training camp.

The basics

Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 296
Age: 25
Position: Defensive line
Experience: 1
Contract: Year 1 of two-year, $1.491 million contract | Guaranteed: $6,500 | 2021 cap hit; $663,250

Career to date

Undrafted after a six-year career at Boise State (due to a 2018 medical redshirt), Moa was cut by the Minnesota Vikings at the end of training camp last season. He spent a week on the Atlanta Falcons practice squad, got released and was signed to the Giants practice squad in October. He remained there the rest of the season and signed a reserve/futures contract with the team in January.

At Boise State, Moa played in 39 games with 93 tackles (22.5 for loss) and 11.5 sacks. He had 8.5 of those in 2016, his red-shirt sophomore season.

2021 outlook

There is obviously something about Moa that the Giants like. They carried him most of last season on their practice squad, and wasted no time signing him to a futures contract for 2021.

Here is a pre-draft scouting report from The Draft Network:

PROS: Squatty build offers initial leverage off the snap. Flashes multiple hand fighting wins on the inside to generate quick pressures: has a swim, a sick little spin move, and a club/rip that all land with a decent rate of success. Lots of power in his strikes, with a good sense of timing to marry handwork to footwork and clear his hips into a gap. Successful often on stunts and twists and provides versatility, lining up anywhere between the tackles and attacking C-gap to C-gap.

CONS: Uninspiring athlete who lacks length, agility, and explosiveness. Stubby at the point of attack and accordingly struggles to generate power rushes, which may also be a consequence of a bit of a tweener frame/lack of size - he is not the 300 pounds he’s listed. Insufficient quickness and explosiveness evident in many dead rushes that fail to disengage fully from opponent — lacks twitch to create space. There is some power there, but lack of length and average first step weaken bull rush profile. Washed by double teams regularly and has a poor tackle radius given inability to keep pads clean.

Moa’s best path would seem to be doing enough to convince the Giants to keep him on their practice squad for another year.