Hakeem Nicks is a special player.  He is Michael Irvin without the attitude and the antics. He is big, strong, and has huge hands.  Hakeem is a match-up nightmare for most teams, and coupling him with a few other special players has made him, and will continue to make him, a dangerous threat anywhere on the filed.

Victor Cruz had the best year any wide receiver has ever had for the New York Giants.  Just that statement alone takes a minute to digest.  An un-drafted free agent who had to sit his first year due to injury, not only made the team, but made the team better and more explosive. Cruz has medium speed, but a quickness and shiftiness that allows him to beat anyone at anytime.

Ramses Barden is 6′ 6″ receiver that was originally supposed to play the role of Plaxico Burress.  Ramses entering his 4th year has a total of 15 receptions and seems to be having trouble not only staying healthy, but learning to play big time football on a consistent basis.  Playing wide receiver in the NFL requires more than catching a ball, it is precise route running, running hard to influence players away from the intended target, and effective blocking on running plays.  Ramses often has been a healthy scratch from games, leading one to believe his practice sessions or film grading is not up to Giants standards.

Domenik Hixon is entering his 7th season, but has missed many games due to injury.  Hopefully Domenik can return to the team fully healthy this year and not only add to his receiving numbers, but bolster the return game as well.

Jerrel Jernigan is a 5’8″ 189 pound speedster out of Troy.  He showed some flashes in the return game towards the end of this season and will look to bolster those numbers this season.  He should make the team easily and add great depth to the Giants  passing attack.

Added to the equation for this training camp are the following: Brandon Collins 5’8″ a rookie out of SE Louisiana, Dan DePalma, 5’11″ from West Chester, David Douglas 6’1″ from Arizona, Julian Talley 6’1″ from Massachusetts, and they welcome back Isaiah Stanback a four year man from Washington at 6’2″.

The big addition here is Rueben Randle 6’2″ 208 from LSU.  Randle showed very well in mini camp.. He is hands catcher, and will compete with Hixon and the others to replace Mario Manningham who now resides in San Francisco

The Giants receiving corps will be a strength again this year.  With Hakeem Nicks taking it a bit easy and slow in the upcoming training camp, not only will more guys get reps in camp, but in the pre-season games as well.  This will be another great watch in camp.  Who will step up this year?

There’s been some discussion around the blogosphere and NY Giants blogs about Domenik Hixon’s dropped passes, and frankly it’ a misnomer.  No drops in 2009 if you can believe it.  And if you go back to 2008 Hixon has one dropped ball to his name, and that was the big drop against Philadelphia after Plax shot himself that would have went for a TD and changed the whole complexion of the game for the Giants.  They ended up losing to the Eagles giving the Birds a sense of confidence without Burress, and then losing to them again at home during the playoffs.

Sorry to bring up all those bad memories, but Hixon’s one dropped ball is usually associated with that whole can of worms.  Needless to say, in 3 years he’s had one dropped ball and it’s time we forgive and forget. In fact, Mario Manningham of all the receivers has the worst case of dropping deep balls from Manning, not Hixon.

Hixon is truly a great slot receiver with very good hands, but he’s also quick enough to get behind the defense and can become that deep threat that Steve Smith never really became.   The Giants WR core will be a good one in 2011, and here’s forgiving and forgetting Hixon’s ONE drop in 2008 so that we can all move on collectively about the state of the 2011 Giants offense without Steve Smith and Kevin Boss.  Ouch, still hurts to say that.

Too soon?