Darnell Mooney's Concerning 2025 Drop Total isn't What It Seems

The New York Giants have built a wide receiver room full of quality second and third options, with Malik Nabers as a legitimate #1 option when he’s healthy.

Of course, Nabers is still recovering from a torn ACL he sustained in week four of the 2025 season against the Los Angeles Chargers and has not yet resumed full football activities, so it’s hard to count him as an available option just yet.

Wan’Dale Robinson stepped up for the Giants in 2025 in Nabers’ absence, with 1,014 yards and four touchdowns on 92 catches, but he’s since signed with the Tennessee Titans and Brian Daboll.

The time for hoping that Darius Slayton takes the next step as a wide receiver has come and gone; he’s proven he’s a vertical option with explosive play potential, but is far too inconsistent to be a top receiver for an offense.

Beyond that trio, no Giants wide receiver had more than 10 catches in 2025, and one of the two that finished with exactly 10 catches in Gunner Olszewski tore his Achilles and will miss the 2026 season.

In free agency, the new coaching staff sought to revamp the room without breaking the bank, leading the Giants to sign Darnell Mooney, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Ryan Miller, Braxton Berrios, and fan favorite Odell Beckham Jr.

From that group, there should be no more than three receivers that make the roster, and Mooney is the safest bet to have a home in East Rutherford by the time the fall comes around.

There’s some redundancy with slot-heavy or Z-specific receivers that should help make the decision easier. The Giants traded up and drafted Malachi Fields in the third round of the 2026 NFL Draft to address the X-receiver spot.

Darnell Mooney, WR

Height: 5-11
Weight: 180
EXP: 7 Years
School: Tulane
How Acquired: FA-’26

2025 in Review

2025 was a tumultuous season for the Atlanta Falcons, who saw a bunch of Ls pop up just like the Giants, and Mooney wasn’t safe from the turbulence.

Mooney finished the season with just 443 yards and one touchdown on 72 targets, all significantly down from his near-1,000-yard season in 2024.

Quarterback play was inconsistent, with Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix Jr. splitting time there. Still, another factor to impact Mooney’s production was the emergence of both Kyle Pitts and Bijan Robinson in the receiving game - Pitts had his most yards since he was a rookie in 2021, and Robinson almost doubled his pass-catching production.

Mooney did most of his damage on medium and deep routes in 2025 and has established himself as someone who can play inside and out and attack vertically, but struggled mightily with drops.

In 2025, he had six drops and a 15.8% drop rate, both career-worst numbers, despite seeing significantly less volume than the year before.

Not to give Mooney an excuse, but five of his six drops came in games where Penix was the starter, and Penix is a lefty, meaning the ball spins the opposite way than it does when coming from the hand of a right-handed thrower, which has been known to be an adjustment for receivers.

Contract/Cap Info

The Giants signed Mooney this past offseason to a one-year, $3 million contract, with the entire deal fully guaranteed at signing.

That means that if the Giants were to cut Mooney at some point, they wouldn’t clear any money and would eat the full $3,000,000 in dead cap.

There is a way the Giants can part ways with him without eating the full contract: trade him.

If Mooney is traded, the Giants would create $1,215,000 in cap space while incurring a dead cap penalty of $1,785,000, which still isn’t ideal but avoids a larger dead cap penalty.

The issue there, of course, is that the Giants would need to find a trade partner willing to give up some kind of asset for Mooney.

An impressive summer or injury to a wide receiver on another team could help create that trade market for Mooney.

This isn’t a significant enough contract that should cause the Giants to try to find a way out of it, but if they do want out of it, that’s their path.

2026 Preview

Mooney is still a smooth route runner based on his 2025 film. The production was down, and the drops caught up to him, but he’s still able to do the thing that made him a successful pro to begin with.

In a Matt Nagy offense, he could be a legitimate threat over the middle of the field, with increased volume expected because of the scheme and the expected development of Jaxson Dart.

Dart’s next step will likely be attacking the middle of the field more often, especially as the hope is that he puts himself in harm’s way less as a runner.

There’s a clear role for Mooney in an offense that will have receivers work all over the formation, and he showed he’s still capable of creating separation for himself.

Drops will be a killer for him if he doesn’t improve, but 2025 was also an uncharacteristic year for him in terms of drops, so the hope is that he won’t still be impacted by whatever caused the drops last year.

There should be an expectation that Mooney winds up on the roster, and even if he isn’t a starting-caliber receiver, he should see consistent playing time on the offense.

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