Going into the 2021 season, the top receiver of the New York Giants from last year will have a different look. It’s not any equipment change, but instead a new number that Shepard will wear for the NFL for the first time after playing with it in college.
And guess what: just checked with Giants and Sterling Shepard's number change to 3 is OFFICIAL.
It's happening. The buyout of the inventory was not as costly as perhaps was anticipated, per source.
So Shep's confirmation of his jersey change is, well, confirmed by the team.
— Art Stapleton (@art_stapleton) May 11, 2021
That means if you want to get an accurate Shepard jersey for this season, it will have the number 3 on it instead of 87. To make the number change possible, the league rules mandated that Shepard buy out the existing stock of the 87 jerseys – but with his large contract, that didn’t seem to be a problem. And, according to Art Stapleton, the buyout wasn’t as expensive as expected.
Both the team and Shepard have confirmed the jersey change at this point. Once again, he’ll take the field in the same number that he and his father wore while they were Oklahoma Sooners.
Shepard, of course, played all four years at Oklahoma before finishing with over 3,000 receiving yards as well as 26 touchdowns. He was then drafted in the second round by the Giants, but has overperformed based on his draft position and locked up a four year contract in 2019.
Injury problems in the last two seasons ensured that Shepard only played in 10 and 12 games respectively, so this upcoming season will be a big one for the receiver. It’s his chance to prove that he can last a whole year again, like he did in his rookie season and in 2018.
We’ve seen quite a lot of Shepard in 87, but maybe, moving back to number 3 will give enough good luck to put together a better season.