These 9 players have been NY Giants’ biggest disappointments of 2021 season
NY Giants Disappointments #3: WR’s Kenny Golladay, Sterling Shepard, and Darius Slayton
No position group has been more disappointing on the NY Giants’ roster this year than the wide receiving core.
This group was the one with the most glaring need for upgrades and improvements this year to fix a broken offense. The Giants retained Jason Garrett, returned Jones, and expected some new faces to make the difference.
The NY Giants’ top two biggest and most valuable investments this offseason were spent at wide receiver. It was expected this group would bounce back from a rough two-year stretch in the absence of Odell Beckham Jr.
If only it was ever that easy.
As always, the best ability in any sport is availability. In that aspect, the NY Giants have again completely failed and should be looking at themselves wondering why.
Kenny Golladay was the team’s crowning jewel of free agency.
Why is that again?
After leading the NFL in receiving touchdowns in 2019 and consecutive 1,000-yard seasons in ’18 and ’19, Golladay was expected to take on the Plaxico Burress role of transforming this NY Giants’ offense with his arrival. Instead, the $72-million man has been hampered by what’s held him back much of his career: Injuries.
Golladay missed over half the 2017 and 2020 seasons. The NY Giants banked on those being anomalies as Golladay paves the way towards a healthy, successful, and long-lasting career. Instead, Golladay has now missed all of training camp and three and a half games with the injury, Do you think that Gettleman has any buyer’s remorse now?
Golladay has been hurt virtually all year and he’s made little to no difference on the Giants’ season. It’s pretty disappointing considering Golladay is one of the top-5 highest-paid players on the Giants’ roster and at his position in the entire NFL.
Golladay has only made one positive impact in one game this year, contributing mightily to the team’s OT win vs the Saints. Golladay needs to stay healthy the rest of the way and make a big difference. If not, his year one in New York was a failure.
Moving onto Sterling Shepard, the conversation is much of the same here.
Shepard’s actually had a career start to this year when healthy. As always, that’s always the case with Shepard. The Giants’ longest-tenured player got off to a hot start before injuries broke down his season yet again. It will be the 4th time in five years Shep has missed over a quarter of the season. He’s a good, well-respected, veteran leader for this team.
But unfortunately, when you’re getting paid $10 million a year off a $40 million extension, you have to live up to your end of the deal and find a way to stay healthy to make a positive difference. Shepard hasn’t done that and his label has to be officially unreliable. It’s hard to keep depending on guys that can drop like a fly and go down on any given play, no matter his great attitude or toughness.
Lastly, Darius Slayton has had a disastrous year three in the NFL. Slayton posted back-to-back 740-yard seasons with 11 TDs combined in his first two years. Slayton caught over six catches in a game four times in two years. This year, he only has 12 catches total on the season.
Slayton was hurt earlier in the year, missing three games while being ineffective out on the field prior to his three inactives.
Slayton was expected to be a solid, reliable WR3 tertiary option for this offense. Instead, the former Tigers’ role has diminished significantly with Kadarius Toney’s emergence and other contributors like Pettis and Collin Johnson stepping up.
Slayton came up heavily in trade talks with other teams. The Giants didn’t find the need or value to move Slayton while he’s still young, talented, and cheap on his rookie deal. With any luck, Slayton uses this as motivation and revenge to remind the NY Giants what he can do and help contribute in the second half of the season for an offense that can greatly use any and all help right now.