Darius Slayton‘s return to Giants practice looks to have ended a brief contract squabble. While the team’s top wide receiver during the Daniel Jones era has not secured an extension, the Giants did make a move that led to his return to practice.
The team added incentives to Slayton’s contract, with the wideout confirming (via the New York Post’s Ryan Dunleavy) that helped lead him to show for voluntary workouts. No additional guarantees come with these incentives, per SNY’s Connor Hughes, but the prospect of additional cash was enough to bring the sixth-year wideout to OTAs.
More specifically, the Giants added $650K in incentives to Slayton’s contract, ESPN.com’s Field Yates tweets. The team previously included $1.5MM in incentives for Slayton in 2024; that number is now at $2.15MM. The Giants have Slayton going into the second season of a two-year, $12MM deal.
The additional incentives mark an interesting step for the parties, seeing as this Giants regime forced Slayton into a pay cut on his rookie deal less than two years ago. But Slayton and this Joe Schoen-led front office had been in talks about a resolution for a few weeks now.
Drafted during the Dave Gettleman GM years, Slayton has helped the Giants after the team made some mistakes on the receiver front. The Golden Tate signing underwhelmed in 2019, and the 2021 offseason — which featured a disastrous Kenny Golladay contract and a Kadarius Toney first-round misfire — set the team back at the position. Amid the missteps around him, Slayton has led the Giants in receiving in four of the past five seasons. Though, he has never topped 800 yards in a single campaign.
While the Giants made an interesting offer to the Patriots in hopes of adding an eventual Jones replacement (Drake Maye), they instead used the No. 6 overall pick to acquire a pass catcher (Malik Nabers) poised to supplant Slayton as the team’s top wideout. Slayton now resides as a Gettleman-era investment — albeit one Schoen re-signed in 2023 — in a receiver cadre otherwise flooded with Schoen pickups. The team has 2023 third-rounder Jalin Hyatt and 2022 second-rounder Wan’Dale Robinson in the fold, joining other players acquired under Schoen — Allen Robinson and ex-Schoen/Brian Daboll Bills pieces Isaiah Hodgins and Isaiah McKenzie.
This bevy of options, Slayton’s arrival under Gettleman and his contract-year status could conceivably make him a trade chip — depending on how Hyatt and Robinson continue to develop — before this year’s November deadline. The Giants, however, have continued to back Jones and appear more likely than not to see Darren Waller retire. Having a proven wideout option to help a quarterback who has never exactly been blessed with reliable receiving casts makes sense. For the time being, Slayton is moving forward with the team that drafted him five years ago.
Watch him get buried under the depth chart by Wandale Nabers and Hyatt lol
I’m an old school guy who always thought the possibility of unemployment was a pretty effective incentive.
I believe that too but Nabers should surpass him in snaps by week 4