2019 Summer Sleeper: New York Giants

Levi Chappell

In our annual 32-part Summer Sleeper series, DLF scribes identify a lightly-touted player on each NFL roster who may be worthy of your consideration. Our subjects all have varying levels of “sleeperness,” but each merits a bit of in-depth discussion here in the Premium Content section.

To help everybody along, we are going to be categorizing our sleepers under one of three headings:

Super Deep Sleepers – Players who aren’t roster-worthy in 12-team leagues, but are still worth keeping an eye on.
Deep Sleepers – An end of the roster player who is more often than not on the waiver wire in 12-team leagues.
Sleeper – A likely rostered player who makes for a good trade target. Their startup ADP puts them out of the top-175 or so.

Because we aren’t going to give you the likes of mainstream sleepers, most of these players will undoubtedly fizzle. All we are asking is for you to keep an open mind and perhaps be willing to make room for one of these players on your bench. You never know when the next Adam Thielen is going to spring up. Feel free to add your own thoughts about our choice for the designated sleeper, or nominate one of your own in the comments below.

The New York Giants have had just one winning season in the last six years, and have struggled to find consistency on offense and as an organization altogether. Eli Manning has also struggled mightily over the past two seasons and the offense has ranked near the bottom half in almost every offensive category.

Surprisingly, the Giants have had a decent amount of fantasy-relevant skill position players over the years, even when the team has struggled. It will be tough for any running back to make an impact when Saquon Barkley is on the roster. The same goes for the tight end position and Evan Engram. One position open for playing time entering the season is wide receiver. With that said, let’s dive in!

Darius Slayton, WR

Category: Super Deep Sleeper

The Giants had a nice core of Odell Beckham Jr. and Sterling Shepard at wide receiver. OBJ is now in Cleveland, and the best replacement the Giants could find was Golden Tate, who is at the back end of his career. After Shepard and Tate, the depth chart looks like a list of extras from a Marvel movie. You just scroll through quickly, don’t recognize any of the names, and then leave the theatre. That leaves a huge opening for the WR3 in New York.

I don’t think Slayton will instantly become the WR3 for the Giants, but his direct competition is Corey Coleman, Cody Latimer, and Bennie Fowler… I like Slayton’s chances of eventually earning the job.

Slayton was drafted in the fifth round of this year’s NFL Draft, and tested as one of the most athletic wide receivers at the Scouting Combine. He has good enough size at 6’1”, 190 lbs, and ran an impressive 4.39-second 40-yard dash. He is your prototypical height, weight, speed receiver.

The Giants organization should be looking for anyone who could energize the team and provide a spark on offense. While teams will be crowding the line of scrimmage all season in order to stop Barkley, openings should appear for wide receivers down field.

One of the biggest factors in the success of the entire Giants offense will be who is starting at quarterback. I fully believe that Daniel Jones should be the starter from day one. We have seen what’s left in Manning’s tank, and it’s a lot of dump-off’s and inaccurate slants. Michael Scott once said: “Sometimes I’ll start a sentence and I don’t even know where it’s going. I just hope I find it along the way.” That’s what it felt like when watching Eli play last year. He would start a play having no idea where it was going, and hopefully he would find it somewhere along the way… spoiler alert, he didn’t.

With Jones behind center, you might actually see some explosive plays and deep passes which could benefit Slayton in a big way. Slayton’s best chance of seeing the field would be establishing himself as the team’s deep threat. Shepard and Tate do a lot of damage once the ball is in their hands, but neither are your typical deep-threat receivers. Slayton could play as the outside receiver for the offense and stretch the field. He wouldn’t see a lot of targets, but he could carve out a niche on the team, which could provide value and big plays.

Take off-season camp reports with a grain of salt… but here is some good news:

With all of that said, please do not go out and pick Slayton with your second round rookie pick and then say: “Levi said I should”. First, how dare you?! Second, slow down, partner. He still has a long way to go in order to make an impact for the Giants. Fellow writer Bruce Matson said it well… the simple goal of the Summer Sleeper article series is to provide context and knowledge on some of the lesser known, or completely unknown prospects in the NFL.

I would have a better chance of finding a one-ended stick than Slayton becoming a top-20 dynasty asset. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your eye on him and possibly stash him deep on your roster or in a taxi spot. Go Big Blue!

levi chappell