Tennis balls to touchdowns: Slayton working to build on big rookie season
What does Darius Slayton have planned for an encore?
In his rookie NFL campaign, the former Auburn deep threat blew away the expectations that came with being a fifth-round draft pick. He was one of 15 players in the entire league with eight or more touchdown catches, tying the Titans' A.J. Brown for the most receiving scores in the NFL among first-year players.
In a standard offseason, Slayton would be in the Giants' facilities for hours on end, every day, furthering his rapport with quarterback Daniel Jones and developing a bond with new Giants offensive coordinator and former Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett.
The 2020 NFL offseason has been anything but standard, though.
"It's going well, but it's been kind of weird for my first NFL offseason," Slayton said earlier this month in a video posted by the Giants. "It's been interesting. I've been able to get some extra time in, some extra work in to focus on some things I wanted to focus on, so that's been good."
Since NFL training camps aren't expected to open until late July, Slayton has been home in Norcross, Ga., spending some extra time with his family while training for the NFL's return and participating in virtual team meetings.
Since he wants to be "catching something" on a daily basis, Slayton recruited some of his family members to aid in keeping his receiving skills sharp while the league continues to encourage its players not to partake in organized practices.
"I started doing ball drills with my dad and my sister, just at the house with tennis balls and stuff like that," Slayton said.
Slayton's practice mates ensured that nothing came easy, even during the more casual exercises.
"It got pretty interesting sometimes," Slayton laughed. "They got into it a little bit. Definitely that stuff was a lot of fun."
A former 4-star athlete out of Greater Atlanta Christian, Slayton caught 10 touchdowns and racked up 1,313 yards over his sophomore and junior seasons at Auburn.
His junior year culminated with an 160-yard game against Purdue in the Music City Bowl, where all three of his catches went for touchdowns.
Slayton led the Giants in both receiving yards and touchdowns in 2019 despite missing the first two games of the year with a hamstring injury. The wideout was obviously was healthy enough to snare 48 passes for 740 yards in 14 games, but Slayton still took things slowly this offseason in hopes of being 100% when practices resume next month.
"I'm just trying to get my body right," Slayton said of his home workout regimen. "I had the hamstring last year, had some other little, nagging things last year. So I'm just doing little things to tune up and make sure everything's strong and ready to go for camp."
The Giants went 4-12 last season, but there's plenty of reasons for optimism while the organization is in rebuilding mode, especially on offense.
Two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning's retirement allowed Jones, a second-year QB out of Duke, to assume full command of the offense. The crew of talented, young athletes around Jones includes tailback Saquon Barkley, a receiving corps of Slayton, Golden Tate and Sterling Shepard, tight end Evan Engram and former Patriots anchor Nate Solder at left tackle and top-5 2020 NFL draft pick Andrew Thomas at right tackle.
But the rebuild ultimately centers around Jones. The No. 6 overall pick in 2019 wasn't perfect as a rookie but showed flashes of exceptional quarterback play, throwing 18 touchdowns to five interceptions in the last seven games of the season and eclipsing a single-game QB rating of 120 three times in that span.
His preferred target, Slayton, is itching to build upon the connection and chemistry established in their rookie seasons.
"He's gotten better," Slayton said of Jones. "He's working hard where he's at; I'm working hard where I am. So I know we're both just ready to be back together on the field."
NOT A MEMBER?
JOIN AUBURNSPORTS.COM TODAY to enjoy around-the-clock content including stories, analysis, videos, podcasts, call-in shows and The Greatest Message Board In The History of The Internet.