The New York Giants went into the 2021 offseason with a clear mission: get Daniel Jones some playmakers. The Giants did exactly that, loading up on offensive weapons for Danny Dimes as he enters his third season.
New York made a cannonball splash in the 2021 free agency period when they signed the market’s top receiver Kenny Golladay to a huge deal. Golladay and the Giants inked a four-year $72 million contract. The Giants got themselves an alpha-dog outside wide receiver in Kenny Golladay.
Kenny Golladay is the quintessential “go up and get it” wide receiver. He’s a big-body outside receiver, standing in at 6 feet 4 inches. Golladay is a contested-catch king and one of the best vertical receiving threats in the NFL. According to Pro Football Focus, there are only a couple of wide receivers in the NFL that threaten the long ball like Golladay.
Kenny Golladay, one of the NFL’s best deep threats
Pro Football Focus put sports media in a tizzy last week when analyst Anthony Treash made a hot take claiming that Tyreek Hill might be the best deep threat in NFL history. Uh, hello? Randy Moss? Ever heard of him?
Treash admitted Moss is the deep-ball king. However, he doubled down on his claim and expanded on it, saying Hill is the league’s best deep threat currently and has the potential to go down as the GOAT of the long ball. Anthony Treash then dove into the NFL’s best deep threats and listed the New York Giants’ very own Kenny Golladay as the third-best deep threat in the league.
The two deep-threats listed ahead of Kenny Golladay were Tyreek Hill (duh) and DK Metcalf. Fair enough. Kenny G ranked number three because of his production over the past three seasons. Per PFF, Golladay ranks fourth among NFL wide receivers in deep receiving yards over the past three years, and he was just nine yards behind third-place despite playing in only 5 games in 2020.
Kenny Golladay has the second-highest contested catch rate in the NFL since 2018 (PFF). His ability to body inferior cornerbacks on vertical fifty-fifty balls is what makes him so special. And it is the reason why he is such a perfect fit with Daniel Jones and the New York Giants.
Daniel Jones was PFF’s third-highest graded passer on deep balls in 2020 with a 95.6 passing grade. Kenny Golladay’s 628 yards on deep passes ranked second in the league in 2019 (PFF). Danny Dimes has elite deep-ball accuracy and now he finally has an elite deep-receiving option. Time for Jason Garrett and Daniel Jones to get the nuclear launch codes out and say “bombs away!” in 2021.