Tom Brady will have to find someone else to protect his blindside
The New York Giants are expected to sign offensive lineman Nate Solder to a four-year, $62 million contract, with $35 million guaranteed. The deal makes him the highest-paid offensive lineman in the NFL, according to NFL.com.
Solder, 29, will leave the New England Patriots, where he played his first seven years in the league. A stalwart at left tackle, he started 95 games for the Patriots and helped lead them to two Super Bowl wins. His signing boosts a Giants offensive line that gave up the 12th-most sacks in the league last year.
New York isn’t just getting one of the top linemen in the league, but also an amazing contributor off the field. Solder was the Patriots’ 2017 Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee and also overcame testicular cancer. And as a dad, Nate’s primary attention the last few years has been tending to the health of his son, Hudson.
RELATED: Patriots’ Nate Solder leaning on Christ despite son’s rare cancer diagnosis
In October 2015, Hudson Solder was diagnosed with Wilms’ tumor, a rare kidney cancer that affects only about 25 infants per year in the United States. Hudson was just 3 months old when his cancer was discovered.
After a year of chemotherapy treatments, Hudson’s tumors shrunk enough for the treatments to stop in October 2016. But the tumors began to grow again in both kidneys and he resumed chemotherapy sessions in October 2017. Through all the cancer treatments, Solder relies on his faith in Christ, which helps him see life through an eternal perspective.
“We know how much we’re struggling, but people see the way God is carrying us through, the joy that it brings knowing we have an eternal destiny that’s far beyond what’s here on earth,” Nate told Billy Graham.org. “We know we’re not alone in our suffering, and that our suffering is for a reason.
“I just know how frail everything is, how easily it can be taken away and how fortunate we are to be out here every single day,” he said. “But I have my priorities set, and my top priority is God and then my family. When those things are squared away, everything else falls into line. My faith in the Lord is so much bigger than anything we’re doing here, so much bigger than the Super Bowl.”
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