Darnell Mooney’s path with the Giants is about as clean as it gets, and that’s exactly why the pressure is on him.
With Calvin Austin III out for the season after a knee injury, the slot picture in New York has opened up fast. Odell Beckham Jr. and Braxton Berrios have already settled into their lanes, Darius Slayton has slid to the bottom of the depth chart and is expected to be a healthy scratch in Week 1, and the rest of the receiver room doesn’t offer a natural answer inside. That puts Mooney in the spotlight.
He’s the best fit the Giants have at slot receiver from the wideout group, even if the role isn’t completely his by default. Malik Nabers, Slayton and Beckham Jr. have spent most of their NFL careers working outside the numbers.
Fields is more of a big-bodied ball winner than a typical slot option, and Berrios is more likely to matter on special teams than as a featured pass catcher. Tight end Isaiah Likely will also log plenty of snaps from the slot, but Mooney is the clearest wide receiver option.
That makes this a real opening for a player who has had a quiet offseason and barely showed up in the preseason. Mooney appeared only in the opener against the Minnesota Vikings, where he played 14 offensive snaps. Nine came from out wide, five from the slot, and he wasn’t targeted once.
His recent usage has leaned outside, with more than half of his snaps over the last two seasons coming from beyond the numbers. But he’s done real slot work before, and plenty of it. In his final two seasons with the Chicago Bears, Mooney lined up in the slot on more than 60% of his snaps.
There’s also a familiar face in the building. Giants offensive coordinator Matt Nagy coached Mooney in Chicago for two seasons, and that pairing produced the best year of Mooney’s career, when he topped 1,000 receiving yards on 81 catches.
Mooney is a few down seasons removed from that level, but Nagy still has trust built up with him. That matters now, because Mooney’s place on the roster itself was hardly settled during the preseason. At one point, there was uncertainty about whether he’d even make the final team, and he was mentioned as a possible trade candidate.
Now that he’s in the building, the opportunity is there. In a thin receiver room, Mooney should get chances to make his mark from the slot. The question is whether he can turn that opening into something bigger before it disappears.
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