With recent additions to the wide receiver position, some wondered where Sterling Shepard would fall in the New York Giants‘ plans for this season. However, it looks like Shepard is in for a large role after a training camp and preseason where both Kenny Golladay and Kadarius Toney have dealt with injury troubles.
Shepard is one of the offense’s main healthy weapons right now, and former Giant Victor Cruz is predicting a big year for the wide receiver.
“I think watch out for Sterling Shepard. I think he’s going to be a guy… Sterling Shepard is going to be a guy that’s going to do some really big things this year that might slip under the radar,” Cruz said to TMZ Sports on Saturday.
Things have changed a lot for Shepard over the past year. He’s had a hard time playing a full season, participating in 10 games in 2019 and 12 games in 2020. He hasn’t had a 1,000 yard receiving season yet, and the closest he came was back in 2018 when he racked up 872 yards.
Because of problems with concussions that led to his long absences in 2019, many believed the Giants should trade the player while his value is still high.
This season appears to be the other way around. Shepard is the healthy one, and it’s other high profile Giants receivers that are at risk of missing time with injury. Given these circumstances, this is just about as good of a time as any for Shepard to have a breakout season and assert himself as the top weapon in the receiving game for Daniel Jones.
Some will undoubtedly be cautious in making predictions about Shepard thanks to his history of missing games, but Victor Cruz is certainly confident in Shepard making something happen this season and definitely knows a thing or two about Giants wide receivers.