Anthony Rivardo
Jalin Hyatt walked into Giants minicamp as a long shot to make the team and walked out as the player who won the week. The 2023 third-round pick is entering the final year of his rookie deal with a roster spot that was hanging by a thread, and the spring was supposed to be where the Giants moved on. Instead, he forced them to look again.
The opening was not entirely his own doing. With Malik Nabers recovering from a torn ACL and Darius Slayton sidelined by a sports hernia, reps were there for the taking. Hyatt took them, and he did something he rarely has in a Giants uniform: he stood out.
Two years of near-invisibility
The case against Hyatt is written in his stat line. After a rookie season that hinted at the speed that made him a Biletnikoff winner at Tennessee, his production fell off a cliff. He has just 36 career receptions for 470 yards and zero touchdowns across three seasons, and the last two years were close to nonexistent.
| Season | Games | Rec | Yards | Y/R | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 17 | 23 | 373 | 16.2 | 0 |
| 2024 | 17 | 8 | 62 | 7.8 | 0 |
| 2025 | — | 5 | 35 | 7.0 | 0 |
That 16.2 yards per reception as a rookie led the team and ranked fourth among all rookies that year. The two seasons have since produced a combined 13 catches for 97 yards. For a former third-rounder, that is the profile of a player about to be cut, not featured.
Why this spring looked different
Minicamp gave a different read. Hyatt put together what The Athletic’s Dan Duggan called his best practice of the spring, stringing together several notable plays once the injuries ahead of him cleared the runway. The deep speed was always real. What changed was the consistency, the part of his game that kept him buried under John Harbaugh’s predecessor.
The flashes matter more now because the timing is unforgiving. This is a prove-it spring in a last-chance prove-it year.
The roster math is brutal
Even a strong camp does not guarantee Hyatt anything. The Giants flooded the receiver room, and he is fighting rookie Malachi Fields, veterans Odell Beckham Jr. and JuJu Smith-Schuster, and return man Braxton Berrios for what projects to be six spots. Nabers, Slayton, and Darnell Mooney are locked in. The competition is for what is left, and there is not much.
There is a version of this that ends well, even if it does not end in New York. A productive camp and preseason could rebuild enough value to make Hyatt a trade chip rather than a cut. The more interesting version is the one where he finally turns the speed into a role and makes the Giants glad they waited. For the first time in two years, that outcome is back on the table.
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