Does Darius Slayton have a point?

He’s more productive than many Giants fans give him credit for

Jordan Ranaan reported Wednesday that New York Giants wide receiver Darius Slayton has declined to attend voluntary workouts this week because he is seeking a new contract. In the Big Blue View comments section and on the app formerly known as Twitter there was considerable negative reaction to this. Some fans claimed he was not honoring his contract. Others said that it was time for the Giants to move on from Slayton. The responses to Raanan’s announcement of this tell the story:

Let’s address the issue from several angles:

Is Slayton not honoring his contract by not attending workouts this week?

No. The workouts are voluntary. Slayton, like many other players but not all, has a workout bonus clause in his contract that will pay him $350,000 if he attends:

Courtesy of Over The Cap

Slayton’s cap number in this, the final year of his two-year contract, is $8.15M. That comes from a base salary of $2.5M plus signing, roster, workout, and “other” bonuses. Skipping the voluntary workouts this week saves the Giants $350,000 on the cap – about half of an end of the roster player cost. I don’t think I’ve seen any fan celebrating that fact.

Is Slayton holding out?

Not as far as we know. Raanan’s reporting is that Slayton is looking for a contract extension. Apparently he has not yet been approached about that possibility, unlike teammates Andrew Thomas and Dexter Lawrence, who signed contract extensions last year in the middle of the season.

Thomas and Lawrence are more accomplished players than Slayton (who entered the league in the same class as Lawrence and one year earlier than Thomas), but like them, signing Slayton to an extension would likely save the Giants room on the cap this year because of the prorated signing bonus that has become de rigeur in NFL contracts.

If the Giants envision keeping Slayton, it would make sense to extend him sooner rather than later from that angle. The real issue is that the Giants may not envision retaining Slayton at all after this year because they anticipate adding high-end receiving talent in the draft. (Does that mean they’re going WR in Round 1?)

Is Slayton worth keeping?

Giants fandom has a puzzling opinion of Slayton, with many considering him no more than an average wide receiver with a drop problem who is not worth keeping at all or at anything but a bargain price. He will be behind Jalin Hyatt on the depth chart. He will ride the bench while a rookie gets most of his snaps. He will be no better than WR4 or WR5.

The reality of Slayton is something different. Here are Slayton’s 2023 stats compared to the receivers closest to him in season receiving yards who are on their second contracts:

Courtesy of Pro Football Focus

Slayton was 20th in receiving yards among veteran wide receivers in 2023. His Pro Football Focus receiving grade was similar to many of theirs. Drops, the bane of Slayton’s NFL existence, were not any more of a problem than they were for most other receivers in his class according to PFF’s drop grade.

Look at some of the company he kept, though. Tyler Lockett, Deebo Samuel, Christian Kirk, Courtland Sutton, Cooper Kupp, Diontae Johnson, Tyler Boyd, Brandin Cooks, Marquise Brown, to name a few. He had to catch passes from three different QBs, playing behind an offensive line that often had trouble holding blocks long enough to permit deep passes, yet his 15.4 yards per reception was better than all of them. Slayton’s 302 YAC in 2023 was exceeded only by Samuel and Kupp among the group listed above and 14th overall among veteran WRs.

There is one big difference between Slayton and many of those other receivers, though. Slayton’s contract pays him $6M per year average annual value. Here are the other contracts, per Over The Cap:

• Cooper Kupp: $27.60M
• Deebo Samuel: $23.85M
• Diontae Johnson: $18.36M
• Christian Kirk: $18.00M
• Tyler Lockett: $15.00M
• Courtland Sutton: $15.00M
• Jakobi Meyers: $11.00M
• Tyler Boyd: $10.75M
• Brandin Cooks: $10M
• Curtis Samuel: $8M
• Marquise Brown: $7M
• Josh Reynolds: $4.5M

I won’t claim that Slayton is the equal of all those receivers, particularly Kupp and Samuel. I also won’t claim he’s worse than all of them, either. The hard numbers of his production last season – and in four of his five seasons in the NFL, in which he has led the Giants in receiving – tell us that he’s of similar caliber to most of them. Yet he makes less than all but one of them and he’s not in contract negotiations to remain a Giant at the moment, apparently, and he doesn’t seem to get much respect from fans.

Last time we saw him, Slayton was doing this to the Eagles:

and this to the Rams:

It’s possible that Slayton’s role will be diminished this year depending on what the Giants do in the draft. It’s also possible that when the dust settles, Slayton will once again be a key member of the Giants’ offense, as he was in 2022 when he was not even active in early season games, and as he was in 2023 when he became Tyrod Taylor’s favorite deep threat late in the season.

It’s not as if the Giants are overspending at the WR position. Per Over The Cap, their $19.6M devoted to the WR room is eighth lowest in the NFL and less than half of what eight other teams spend. A two-year extension for 2025-2026 that puts him in the mid-range of the players listed above, i.e., $5M AAV or so higher than his current contract pays, gives the Giants the chance to evaluate Hyatt through the end of his rookie contract before the Giants have to decide whether to extend him on a larger veteran deal. If Hyatt fulfills his potential, then the Giants could reasonably cut ties with Slayton after 2026 if needed.

It’s a passing league. Extending Slayton makes sense.