Giants Receivers Coach Tyke Tolbert Shares the Advice He Game to Darius Slayton

You remember Darius Slayton, right?

He’s the Giants’ fifth-round draft pick from 2019 who that season burst onto the scene, appearing in 14 games with nine starts and catching 48 out of 84 pass targets for 740 yards and a team-leading eight touchdowns?

Of late, the receiver hasn’t been able to build on that solid rookie campaign in which it looked like he and quarterback Daniel Jones might emerge as the most unlikely of quarterback-receiver duos to appear out of nowhere.

Slayton, who in 202 topped his rookie year yardage (barely) with 751 yards despite battling through some injuries, has since seen his progress go in the opposite direction.

Whereas he only had three dropped passes as a rookie, Slayton has had six in each of the two seasons since. And while he was never a top performer with corralling contested catches—his best season in that area, again, was his rookie campaign (48 percent)—that percentage has declined every year since to 31.8 percent last year and 12.5 percent this year.

Receivers coach Tyke Tolbert thinks Slayton might be pressing a little bit too much this year to where he’s not letting things happen naturally.

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“Although we haven’t had them all at the same time a lot of times, I think when you have so much talent and so many things, the opportunities don’t come your way as much. So when opportunities do come your way, he probably presses a little bit too much instead of just relaxing and being himself and letting the game come to him,” he said.

Slayton does have speed. According to NextGen Stats, he sees an average cushion by defensive backs of 6.7 yards, and he’s able to maintain three yards of separation.

But the plays that he used to make as a rookie just haven’t come consistently, even when the opportunities have been there.

Tolbert has constantly been in the 6-foot-1, 190-pound Slayton’s ear this season, trying to reassure him and remind him that it’s okay to make a mistake every now and then so long as he learns from it.

“Yeah, we’ve talked to him about that, just, ‘Hey, man. Just relax, just be yourself, do you. When you have an opportunity to make the play, go make the play. Don’t be so hard on yourself when you don’t make the play.’ Jerry Rice dropped the ball too back in the day—I’m not saying he’s Jerry Rice, but what I’m saying is receivers are going to drop balls.

“Receivers are going to drop balls, so like when a defensive back gets beat on a deep ball, you’ve got to forget about it and go to the next play. Same thing when a receiver drops the ball, forget it and go to the next play.”

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