Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: Trench on June 13, 2025, 02:03:43 PMWhen Pugh was looking at Neal's feet, was he saying he was impressed- or was it poor technique??

From what I am seeing, Neal's footwork and change in direction looked good

It's textbook.

He stays down, keeps a nice wide base, shows good footwork and redirects instantly when McFadden drops out.

His peripheral vision and/or awareness picking up twists & stunts was scary bad at RT.

I personally believe his struggles were due to not being able to handle speed. That made him overcompensate, and he spiraled and lost confidence.

That 1 play is promising. If Bricillo is all he's cracked up to be, maybe he's made some headway.

These are the 4 big things I took away from OTAs the past couple of days.

1) Neal impressing at LG, which is great because we have no news on Runyan post surgery. We have so many guys not working that I think we'd all like info on. Nabers, Skattebo, Thomas, Dimukeje, and yhe list goes on. 

2) The Jalin Hyatt hype is way overblown, the coaches are saying almost verbatim what they said last year regarding his strength, focus etc and nothing came of it. So I would pump the breaks just a little, yes he does have a connection with Russ but so does every other WR on the team. When Nabers comes back, Hyatt will split reps with Slayton and I don't know that he'll get the snaps to have the production people think he'll have.

3 Flott is getting a ton of reps opposite Adebo, either Flott is building off his great end to last season, or the coaches want to give Banks some rest.

4. The Jaxson Dart news is wild right now. Athlon and a few other publications wrote wild pieces saying that all Giants fans have revolted against Dart and the FO because we didn't take Sanders. The coaches specifically said they were making things hard on Dart this week so that he does have bad days but instead of adding that context into the piece they just run wild.

Quote from: Jclayton92 on June 13, 2025, 04:55:43 PMThese are the 4 big things I took away from OTAs the past couple of days.

1) Neal impressing at LG, which is great because we have no news on Runyan post surgery. We have so many guys not working that I think we'd all like info on. Nabers, Skattebo, Thomas, Dimukeje, and yhe list goes on. 

2) The Jalin Hyatt hype is way overblown, the coaches are saying almost verbatim what they said last year regarding his strength, focus etc and nothing came of it. So I would pump the breaks just a little, yes he does have a connection with Russ but so does every other WR on the team. When Nabers comes back, Hyatt will split reps with Slayton and I don't know that he'll get the snaps to have the production people think he'll have.

3 Flott is getting a ton of reps opposite Adebo, either Flott is building off his great end to last season, or the coaches want to give Banks some rest.

4. The Jaxson Dart news is wild right now. Athlon and a few other publications wrote wild pieces saying that all Giants fans have revolted against Dart and the FO because we didn't take Sanders. The coaches specifically said they were making things hard on Dart this week so that he does have bad days but instead of adding that context into the piece they just run wild.

I'm probably just missing something, but does Hyatt really get a lot of hype outside of from a small handful of folks on this board?

If he does, I haven't really seen it.

Quote from: Jclayton92 on June 13, 2025, 04:55:43 PMThese are the 4 big things I took away from OTAs the past couple of days.

1) Neal impressing at LG, which is great because we have no news on Runyan post surgery. We have so many guys not working that I think we'd all like info on. Nabers, Skattebo, Thomas, Dimukeje, and yhe list goes on. 

2) The Jalin Hyatt hype is way overblown, the coaches are saying almost verbatim what they said last year regarding his strength, focus etc and nothing came of it. So I would pump the breaks just a little, yes he does have a connection with Russ but so does every other WR on the team. When Nabers comes back, Hyatt will split reps with Slayton and I don't know that he'll get the snaps to have the production people think he'll have.

3 Flott is getting a ton of reps opposite Adebo, either Flott is building off his great end to last season, or the coaches want to give Banks some rest.

4. The Jaxson Dart news is wild right now. Athlon and a few other publications wrote wild pieces saying that all Giants fans have revolted against Dart and the FO because we didn't take Sanders. The coaches specifically said they were making things hard on Dart this week so that he does have bad days but instead of adding that context into the piece they just run wild.

And then just 2 days ago Athlon writes that the Giants have a QB competition brewing between Wilson and Dart.  Clickbait of the highest order, IMO.

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on June 13, 2025, 05:28:35 PMI'm probably just missing something, but does Hyatt really get a lot of hype outside of from a small handful of folks on this board?

If he does, I haven't really seen it.

It has been all over twitter between a ton of the fan base and some media. They have been acting like he is going to have sone crazy jump. It's the same hype that people had last year and nothing came of it. 

Quote from: Jclayton92 on June 13, 2025, 06:23:56 PMIt has been all over twitter between a ton of the fan base and some media. They have been acting like he is going to have sone crazy jump. It's the same hype that people had last year and nothing came of it. 

Fair enough.

People get excited about wide receivers who are very fast the same way they do by any QB prospect with a big time arm. We have repeatedly seen folks here in this forum get very excited in the not distant past about receivers with glitzy 40 times who simply weren't very good. Both John Ross and Parris Campbell come to mind. There are other examples. Hyatt may be yet another such example. We'll see.

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on June 13, 2025, 05:28:35 PMI'm probably just missing something, but does Hyatt really get a lot of hype outside of from a small handful of folks on this board?

If he does, I haven't really seen it.

I'm in the camp that what I saw of Hyatt his rookie year it appeared we had a legit breakaway WR. If we were able to go back and look at all the posts about him it would surprise many because I remember in game threads and during the weeks he was being heralded as a great draft pick and big play guy.

All of a sudden Dabol doesn't throw the ball to him and he apparently is in the doghouse. There are some who will say it was his route running or attention span or something which caused it. I never heard Dabol say any of that. Maybe he was tardy at practice or didn't hustle who knows. Something happened. We will never know as Dabol keeps things like this close to the vest. I know what I saw for two years - he usually had a couple steps on most of his deep routes. That's a good thing.

Have we examined whether or not the problem maybe wasn't all Hyatt?

Put me down today as having this guy as a breakout player. At the end of the year if I'm wrong I'll own it. Our veteran QB sees something in the man. I agree with him.

Quote from: Trench on June 14, 2025, 01:04:54 AMI'm in the camp that what I saw of Hyatt his rookie year it appeared we had a legit breakaway WR. If we were able to go back and look at all the posts about him it would surprise many because I remember in game threads and during the weeks he was being heralded as a great draft pick and big play guy.

All of a sudden Dabol doesn't throw the ball to him and he apparently is in the doghouse. There are some who will say it was his route running or attention span or something which caused it. I never heard Dabol say any of that. Maybe he was tardy at practice or didn't hustle who knows. Something happened. We will never know as Dabol keeps things like this close to the vest. I know what I saw for two years - he usually had a couple steps on most of his deep routes. That's a good thing.

Have we examined whether or not the problem maybe wasn't all Hyatt?

Put me down today as having this guy as a breakout player. At the end of the year if I'm wrong I'll own it. Our veteran QB sees something in the man. I agree with him.

For me, while his speed was excellent the thing that really stood out were his flypaper hands.  Everything stuck.  Maybe that's not enough to make a receiver a pro-bowler, but 'show me what he can do, don't tell me  what he can't do' coaching should be able to get decent productivity from a guy like that.

Quote from: Trench on June 14, 2025, 01:04:54 AMI'm in the camp that what I saw of Hyatt his rookie year it appeared we had a legit breakaway WR. If we were able to go back and look at all the posts about him it would surprise many because I remember in game threads and during the weeks he was being heralded as a great draft pick and big play guy.

All of a sudden Dabol doesn't throw the ball to him and he apparently is in the doghouse. There are some who will say it was his route running or attention span or something which caused it. I never heard Dabol say any of that. Maybe he was tardy at practice or didn't hustle who knows. Something happened. We will never know as Dabol keeps things like this close to the vest. I know what I saw for two years - he usually had a couple steps on most of his deep routes. That's a good thing.

Have we examined whether or not the problem maybe wasn't all Hyatt?

Put me down today as having this guy as a breakout player. At the end of the year if I'm wrong I'll own it. Our veteran QB sees something in the man. I agree with him.

I hope you're right Trench. He was a guy I definitely had real hopes for coming in. Maybe he'll be a late bloomer and he'll have a big breakout season and really step up in 2025.

I will say though, if he does, that's pretty unusual in the modern NFL. There are not many examples of receivers who do literally nothing their first two seasons and then are suddenly good out of nowhere.

I'm happy to be hopeful and open-minded, but one thing I'm completely unwilling to do myself (others are obviously free to if they want to) is turn this guy into the Daniel Jones of wide receivers. Where he continues to not perform and we just keep heaping the blame on literally anyone and everyone BUT him himself. I was not willing to do that with Jones, and I'm not going to do it with this guy either. He needs to put up or shut up this season. That's it.

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on June 14, 2025, 07:40:31 AMI hope you're right Trench. He was a guy I definitely had real hopes for coming in. Maybe he'll be a late bloomer and he'll have a big breakout season and really step up in 2025.

I will say though, if he does, that's pretty unusual in the modern NFL. There are not many examples of receivers who do literally nothing their first two seasons and then are suddenly good out of nowhere.

I'm happy to be hopeful and open-minded, but one thing I'm completely unwilling to do myself (others are obviously free to if they want to) is turn this guy into the Daniel Jones of wide receivers. Where he continues to not perform and we just keep heaping the blame on literally anyone and everyone BUT him himself. I was not willing to do that with Jones, and I'm not going to do it with this guy either. He needs to put up or shut up this season. That's it.

Jeff,

Having researched this, I have discovered that year three breakouts are more common than I would have thought.  Here is an article

https://fantasyindex.com/2018/02/19/factoid/third-year-breakout-for-wide-receivers

Quote from: MightyGiants on June 14, 2025, 07:50:10 AMJeff,

Having researched this, I have discovered that year three breakouts are more common than I would have thought.  Here is an article

https://fantasyindex.com/2018/02/19/factoid/third-year-breakout-for-wide-receivers

Rich,

None of the bold faced players on this list who are any good had rookie seasons more recently than 15 years ago (2010), so I'm not sure I'd refer to the phenomenon as "common" in the modern NFL myself. The ones whose rookie seasons were after 2010 in this list all either stink or are/were mediocre at the absolute best.

Moreover, the term "third year breakout" has to be defined clearly in this discussion. Dez Bryant had 928 catches and 9 TDs in year two, and he is listed as a "third year breakout" data point in this article. So I don't think it makes sense to use him as a data point that is somehow suggestive that Hyatt might be good in year three. We're talking about a totally different situation there. I'm pretty sure most Giants fans would sign up for a 2025 Hyatt season like Bryant's second season in a second.

How many of these guys had zero touchdowns in their first two seasons in the NFL despite suiting up for 33 games? How many averaged 13.2 receiving yards per game in their first two seasons like Hyatt did? I think it's important to acknowledge how much of a non-entity Hyatt was in his first two years before we start casting the net for comps. In my opinion, the net this article casts is too wide if we're looking for it to give us significant hope about Hyatt in 2025.

Look, I'm not saying Hyatt can't or won't improve this year. I think there's a good chance he will. It is frankly hard for him to do less than he has done to this point. But for him to suddenly be a high impact player out of nowhere after doing literally almost nothing (truly nothing if one cares about touchdowns) for his entire first two seasons would be a very unusual if not unheard of thing these days. I hope he is a highly unusual example of a player who bucks the trend and turns into a solid player after being a nobody for the first two season of his career.

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on June 14, 2025, 07:40:31 AMI hope you're right Trench. He was a guy I definitely had real hopes for coming in. Maybe he'll be a late bloomer and he'll have a big breakout season and really step up in 2025.

I will say though, if he does, that's pretty unusual in the modern NFL. There are not many examples of receivers who do literally nothing their first two seasons and then are suddenly good out of nowhere.

I'm happy to be hopeful and open-minded, but one thing I'm completely unwilling to do myself (others are obviously free to if they want to) is turn this guy into the Daniel Jones of wide receivers. Where he continues to not perform and we just keep heaping the blame on literally anyone and everyone BUT him himself. I was not willing to do that with Jones, and I'm not going to do it with this guy either. He needs to put up or shut up this season. That's it.

It is his route running, I remember the video of the cowboys coach around the draft saying you'll never make it and he had to be referring to him getting in and out of his breaks. Hands are great, speed is great, but the art of being a Wr he's missing.

Quote from: DaveBrown74 on June 14, 2025, 08:06:05 AMRich,

None of the bold faced players on this list who are any good had rookie seasons more recently than 15 years ago (2010), so I'm not sure I'd refer to the phenomenon as "common" in the modern NFL myself. The ones whose rookie seasons were after 2010 in this list all either stink or are/were mediocre at the absolute best.

Moreover, the term "third year breakout" has to be defined clearly in this discussion. Dez Bryant had 928 catches and 9 TDs in year two, and he is listed as a "third year breakout" data point in this article. So I don't think it makes sense to use him as a data point that is somehow suggestive that Hyatt might be good in year three. We're talking about a totally different situation there. I'm pretty sure most Giants fans would sign up for a 2025 Hyatt season like Bryant's second season in a second.

How many of these guys had zero touchdowns in their first two seasons in the NFL despite suiting up for 33 games? How many averaged 13.2 receiving yards per game in their first two seasons like Hyatt did? I think it's important to acknowledge how much of a non-entity Hyatt was in his first two years before we start casting the net for comps. In my opinion, the net this article casts is too wide if we're looking for it to give us significant hope about Hyatt in 2025.

Look, I'm not saying Hyatt can't or won't improve this year. I think there's a good chance he will. It is frankly hard for him to do less than he has done to this point. But for him to suddenly be a high impact player out of nowhere after doing literally almost nothing (truly nothing if one cares about touchdowns) for his entire first two seasons would be a very unusual if not unheard of thing these days. I hope he is a highly unusual example of a player who bucks the trend and turns into a solid player after being a nobody for the first two season of his career.

Fantasy Football is helpful for this particular topic, since they are always looking for breakout WRs


According to research from Sam Ryner's original article:

From 2012 to 2021, an average of 4.4 first-time WR1s emerged per season.
Over 50% of these breakouts came in Year 2 or Year 3, reinforcing the idea that early-career development is key.
34% first became WR1s in their third season
20% in their second season
16% in their fifth season
11% in their rookie season
0% in Year 7, Year 9, Year 10 or Year 12 or later

Recent Seasons: New WR1 Breakouts
Unfortunately, Ryner's article stopped after the 2022 season. But I've gone back over the last three years and added the desired data (full PPR scoring).

2022:

5 new WR1s
3 second-year WRs
1 third-year WR
1 fifth-year WR
2023:

3 new WR1s
1 rookie
1 third-year WR
1 sixth-year WR
2024:

8 new WR1s
3 rookies
2 third-year WRs
1 fifth-year WR
1 sixth-year WR
Key Data:

Year 2/Year 3 WRs = 44% of breakouts
Rookies = 25%
Year 5/Year 6 WRs = 25% (often on new teams)

https://www.fantasypros.com/2025/06/identifying-the-next-breakout-wide-receivers-fantasy-football/?utm_source=chatgpt.com


Again, I am not saying Hyatt is going to break out. I am simply pointing out that my assumption (and I believe yours) that if a WR hasn't shown something in his first two years, he is a longshot to ever produce is mistaken

It wasn't just the offense Hyatt came out of that made him a risky draft pick. Football-wise, at TEN, he lined up in the offset slot a ton, which kept him away from press coverage. In the NFL, this dude is not a slot WR. He stinks working the short and intermediate middle. So you have to line him up outside, but then he's going to get pressed and knocked off his route. Sure, he can get a step deep, but he also leaves no room up the sideline to place the ball. NFL CBs are really good, and trained to never let a guy run up the hash. Meanwhile WRs are trained to always get up the hash. It's a game within the game dogfight. If you go deep, they knock you towards the sideline.

Watch Nabers go deep - like most legit WR1's he is strong as a bull and gets upfield on the hashmark with room to the sideline for a QB to place the ball over the outside shoulder. Hyatt just gets bullied out there, leaves little room to throw and does not compete at the catch point. I'll bet that preseason INT last year vs. the Texans really pissed Daboll off. (Where Stingley just abused him.)

Sure, every once in a while he'll blow by a guy and make a deep catch. But the vast majority of the time, this guy's getting manhandled and pushed around. And any other route he runs looks rounded and pretty damn ugly. And on top of that, he was dropping balls last year too. And on top of that, you have to be able to run the full route tree as an outside WR.

AND on top of the football, he was known to be immature with a poor attitude when things didn't go his way (which they oftentimes don't in the NFL).

There is no mystery here why he isn't playing. He can't reliably line up inside or outside. What are you going to do? It's not just Brian Daboll doesn't like him for some petty reason. For what he's shown, he's a 1-trick pony that is a WR4 at best, but does not contribute to specials. And that's with a good attitude. With a bad attitude? There isn't much use for him.