Remember when the New York Giants gave Isaiah Likely a three-year, $40 million contract this offseason, and people wondered whether they were overpaying for a backup tight end? About that.
The former Baltimore Ravens what-if has wasted approximately zero time making just about everyone look foolish. In Sunday's ugly 19-11 win over the Philadelphia Eagles, Likely caught five passes for 53 yards and also had Big Blue's lone touchdown of the game, giving him 46 receptions halfway through the season.
That's already four more than his previous single-season career high set in 2024. He still has nine games to go, by the way.
Likely came to East Rutherford looking to escape Mark Andrews' shadow, and head coach John Harbaugh gave him the keys to do exactly that, even usurping potential breakout TE candidate Theo Johnson in the pecking order. Eight games later, the 26-year-old is playing like one of the league's top tight ends, and that once-questionable deal is starting to look like some of the best money the G-Men have ever spent.
Isaiah Likely is rewriting career highs and chasing Giants history
When the Giants signed Likely in March, they were betting that his limited production in Baltimore had more to do with opportunity than ability. Playing behind Andrews for four seasons meant fighting for targets, and his previous career highs of 42 catches, 477 yards, and six touchdowns weren't exactly screaming $13.3 million per year.
Well, take a look at how his first eight games in New York stack up against his previous career bests:
That's 46 receptions. 70 targets. Six touchdowns. And 448 receiving yards, putting him just 29 yards shy of matching his previous career high.
He could set new personal bests in receiving yards and touchdowns as early as Thursday's Week 10 primetime matchup against the Washington Commanders. One more touchdown would give him the outright lead with seven, while 30 receiving yards would push him past his previous high of 477.
And if we're really getting ahead of ourselves, which, hello, have we met? Likely is also knocking on the door of some pretty impressive franchise history.
He's currently on pace for a monster year: roughly 98 receptions, 952 yards, and 13 touchdowns over 17 games. For perspective, Giants legend Mark Bavaro's 1,001 receiving yards in 1986 remain Big Blue's single-season tight end receiving yards record. Jeremy Shockey's 894 yards in 2002 rank second, followed by his 891 in 2005, Aaron Thomas' 877 in 1967, and Bavaro's 867 in 1987.
Perhaps the most impressive part is that he's doing all this while catching passes from three different quarterbacks. Jaxson Dart, J.J. McCarthy, and Jameis Winston have all gotten reps under center, yet the 6-foot-4, 240-pounder keeps stuffing the stat sheet regardless of who's throwing him the football. His six touchdown catches are the most by a Giants tight end through the team's first eight games of a season in the Super Bowl era.
His contract carries a much bigger cap hit next season, but if that's the going rate for a record-setting tight end, New York probably isn't losing sleep over the $17.666 million figure. Turns out that paying a backup like a starter works pretty well when he was a starter all along.
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