NY Giants have the shortest, fastest receivers in NFC East
Does size matter in the NFL? Football, after all, is a game of inches, so how do the NY Giants stack up?
This post is not meant to look down upon short wide receivers, even though it’d be easy to do so, as I stand taller than they do wearing cleats, especially this current crop of NY Giants receivers.
This is just to state some facts, such as the NY Giants have one of the shortest wide receiver corp in the NFC East. Actually, they and the Philadelphia Eagles have the shortest crew when looking at the top five receivers on the current depth charts.
When pulling the numbers, only the top five players at wide receiver were considered. Though tight ends are increasingly becoming receivers in their own right, they were omitted for this analysis.
The Giants recent signing of Kelvin Benjamin, a former first round selection of Dave Gettleman during his Carolina tenure, was equally omitted, as he is expected to play TE for the Giants, should he make the team.
The receiver position itself has certainly transitioned. What was primarily played by taller players to come down with contested catches has become a spot for quick, speedy route runners that burn the defender and get wide open.
That seems to be the hope. The shorter the average height in the NFC East, the faster the average 40-yard dash times.
But on the flip side, the taller the team’s average in the division, the higher their catch percentage.
On the short end of the NFC East receivers, the Giants and Eagles have an average height of 72.2 inches, or 6 feet. The Washington Football Team stands at 72.6 inches, or 6’1”. The Dallas Cowboys are the tallest, at 73.8 inches, or 6’2”.
Do those inches matter? Well, football is referred to as a game of inches for a reason.
The NFC East is the epitome of this mantra. With a sub-500 record of 7-9, Washington became the division’s representative in the playoffs, winning just one more game than the Giants.
So to see who has the edge before the 2021 season begins, let’s take a look at the division’s tallest, fastest, and surest hands.