Giants Receivers Coach Tyke Tolbert Had This to Say About Kenny Golladay’s Production Struggles

Kenny Golladay has had a season to forget production wise for the Giants. His receivers coach, Tyke Tolbert, has a theory why.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Jan 7, 2022 8:00 AM EST

When the Giants made receiver Kenny Golladay their top offensive target during last year’s free-agent period, they envisioned a skyscraper receiver capable of winning contested catches and giving quarterback Daniel Jones something he didn’t have since taking over as the teams' starter: a legitimate X-receiver.

Unfortunately, Golladay’s production in his first season as a Giant hasn’t come close to resembling what one might expect from a No. 1 receiver. Golladay’s production in his first season as a Giant—he’s caught 34 of 70 pass targets(48.6 percent) for 499 yards and zero touchdowns while winning just 14 out of30 contested catches (46.7 percent—are all career lows, not counting his injury-shortened 2020 season.

In addition, according to NFL NextGen Stats, Golladay has averaged 1.7 yards of separation this season, down from the average of 1,9 yards per separation he had in 2019, his last fully healthy season.

The drop in targets has been especially concerning considering Golladay’s playmaking abilities and frustrating at times for the receiver himself. He’s had four games out of the 13 in which he’s played in which he’s had three or fewer pass targets, and in two of those games, he didn’t have any receptions.

While part of that results from the opposing defenses trying to take Golladay out of the equation, the Giants receivers coach offered another potential reason behind Golladay’s disappointing output: a lack of consistency with who throws him the ball.

Golladay, remember, missed most to training camp with a hamstring issue, missing critical reps with quarterback Daniel Jones.

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Since then, of his 70 pass targets this season as a Giant, only 46 of them came from Jones, the other 25 have mostly come from Mike Glennon.

That last point is important according to receivers coach Tyke Tolbert because given Golladay’s tremendous catch radius--in itself is a weapon even when he’s not open--it can take getting used to for a quarterback to determine when the receiver is open.

“There’s probably some validity to that,” Tolbert said Thursday. “It’s having guys feel more comfortable and throwing it to a guy when he doesn’t quote unquote see him open.”

The Giants have certainly tried to get the ball to Golladay more since Week 12. He’s been targeted 37 times over that stretch, catching 14 balls. But overall, because the quarterbacks haven’t been able to fully build up a rapport with Golladay, they might have viewed him as being covered when in fact, a well-placed ball within his catch radius might have a chance to go as a completion.

“Like I tell a lot of people all the time, Kenny is 6’4”, so a lot of times he’s open when he’s not open because of his catch radius,” Tolbert said. “If a quarterback or whoever is not used to throwing to guys like that, then that might take some time. So yeah, there’s some validity to that.”