The long-awaited day has finally come. The New York Giants have activated start left tackle Andrew Thomas off of the PUP list.

The Giants announced Tuesday that Thomas has passed his physical and is returning to practice.

“Today was the day that we were planning on working to get him back towards,” said head coach Brian Daboll. “We’ll take it slow, but the trainers did a really good job and AT’s done a nice job. We’ll just keep building him.”

Could Thomas be ready Week 1 against the Washington Commanders? Or, even for a short appearance Thursday vs. the New England Patriots?

Thomas said he “can’t predict” if he will be ready for the season opener.

“I’m just going one day at a time. I can’t really predict that right now. You should see the progress that I’ve made in the last few weeks. We don’t know where it will end up, but I’m just trying to do what I can to do to be back.”

Thomas admitted the Lisfranc injury was “a tough injury to come back from, especially for bigger guys.”

Daboll wasn’t making a prediction about when Thomas would play, either.

“We’ll just take it day by day,” Daboll said. “We’ll give him some reps, whether it’s individual, and then we build him up, but there’s a plan in place.”

Star receiver Malik Nabers and exciting rookie running back Cam Skattebo returned to practice as well. The Giants have been struggling with injury throughout the preseason, but seem to be getting significantly healthier as the preseason winds down and the regular season approaches.

It was reported last week that Nabers had a minor back issue, which the Giants didn’t believe would impact his readiness for the season. That seems to have resolved with plenty of time to spare to resume practice. Skattebo missed both preseason games and a couple weeks of practice after suffering a hamstring injury and then a setback. There was some fear that his injury could linger into the regular season, but he appears healthy enough to practice as well.

Thomas has been held out of practice throughout the offseason and preseason program as he returned from the Lisfranc injury that ended his 2024 season. Questions had been mounting as to whether he would be ready to start he season, though the Giants maintained confidence that he would be healthy in time for Week 1.

We can now say that their confidence wasn’t misplaced and Thomas was indeed on track to be healthy for the start of the season. It remains unlikely that we’ll see Thomas on the field against the New England Patriots Thursday night, but he’ll have almost three weeks to continue to improve before the Giants travel to take on the Washington Commanders to start the season.

Several other players also returned to practice. They are:

Linebacker Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, tight end Chris Manhertz, tight end Daniel Bellinger, cornerback Tre Hawkins, safety K’Von Wallace.