The New York Giants‘ offense is one that could surprise people this season. Daniel Jones is entering his second season and will have to learn a new offense. The Giants hired former Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett to serve as the team’s offensive coordinator. Garrett has been considered a quarterback guru of sorts and led the Cowboys’ offense to consistent top-ten finishes.
The combination of Saquon Barkley, Daniel Jones, and Jason Garrett’s run-heavy/play action-filled offense could be deadly. But New York is going to need the rest of the playmakers to step up. In particular, the Giants are going to need a big season out of wide receiver Darius Slayton.
The Giants’ receiving corps has some solid talent. However, the team lacks a true number one receiving threat. Darius Slayton has the potential to become that primary threat, but he is going to need to take a big step in 2020.
Darius Slayton Rookie Season Stats and Highlights
Darius Slayton was one of the biggest surprises for the Giants in 2019. New York drafted the wide receiver out of Auburn in the fifth round of the NFL Draft. The expectations for a fifth-round wide receiver were pretty low, and he easily exceeded them.
Slayton quickly turned into the Giants’ best receiving threat. He ended up catching 8 touchdown passes in 9 starts to go along with 48 receptions and 740 receiving yards. Slayton is a breakout candidate heading into the 2020 NFL season, but what does he have to do to become that number one receiving threat?
How Slayton Can Improve In 2020
Early on in the 2019 season, Slayton was primarily running just vertical routes. The receiver nearly never had opportunities to catch passes underneath or over the middle of the field. As the season went on, though, Slayton’s route tree became a little more diverse. However, most of his routes were still deep routes. Here is an example of Slayton’s route chart from Week 8 against Detroit, where Darius was used almost exclusively as a deep threat.
As stated earlier, Slayton’s routes became more diverse later on in the season. What is encouraging about this is that, once his routes became more diverse, Slayton became more productive. Take this chart from Darius’s Week 10 performance for example. Slayton proved he can make plays underneath (charts via Next Gen Stats).
To take that step in 2020, Slayton needs to become a more versatile and dependable receiver. The Giants need to see Slayton run effective routes at all levels of the field. Whether they are targeting him on a drag underneath, an in-cut in the intermediate, or a deep post, Slayton needs to get open. Once he proves he can make plays at all levels of the field, Darius Slayton’s role in the Giants’ offense will expand even further and he will become a number one receiver.
Darius Slayton also needs to improve his catch rate. Since he was mainly targeted downfield, his catch rate was about 57.1%. This is about average. If Slayton is going to be a receiver for Daniel Jones to depend on, he is going to need to catch a higher percentage of his targets. If Slayton can run a more diverse route tree and catch over 60% of his targets in 2020, then he will be looked at as a true number one receiver.