Georgia football: 30 greatest players of the Mark Richt era
By John Buhler
- 2x SEC Champion (2002, 2005)
- Consensus All-American (2005)
- First-Team All-SEC (2005)
In this list so far, we have certainly had our handful of great players along the Georgia offensive line. No player was better during the Mark Richt era for the Dawgs than guard Max Jean-Gilles. He edges out former teammate in safety Greg Blue at No. 9.
Jean-Gilles was born in Haiti, but immigrated to the United States in the early 1980s with this parents. He would grow up in the Greater Miami area in South Florida, playing his high school ball at North Miami Beach High School. The two-time all-state offensive linemen came to Athens in 2002.
Like Blue, Jean-Gilles would win an SEC Championship in his first season playing for the Dawgs in 2002. Quickly, he would climb up the depth chart and be a perennial starter at guard for Georgia. His best season came in his senior season in 2005, when he was First-Team All-SEC, a consensus All-American and a SEC Champion for the second time in his college career.
Jean-Gilles’ ability to both run block and pass protect helped quarterback D.J. Shockley star in his lone season as the starting signal caller for the Dawgs. As a big body playing in a tough SEC, Jean-Gilles would end up being a fourth-round pick by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 2006 NFL Draft.
Overall, Jean-Gilles would play five NFL seasons with the Eagles from 2006 to 2010. He played in 29 games, making 16 starts for the Eagles during that time. Injuries and an inability to keep his weight down led to his release in September 2011.
Jean-Gilles would eventually undergo lap bad surgery. He would try to revitalize his football career as an indoor player in 2014-15, but never made it back to the NFL. Though his NFL career was mostly as a reserve player, Jean-Gilles was an absolute force along the Georgia offensive line for years in the early Richt era in Athens.