Color Rush Deandre Baker Jersey , Golden Tate & Co. could be good fit for Eli Manning, Daniel Jones" New York Giants NewsCan Giants’ passing attack flourish without prototypical big wide receiver?New,235commentsSterling Shepard, Golden Tate & Co. could be good fit for Eli Manning, Daniel JonesEDTGoing into the 2019 NFL Draft there was somewhat of an outcry from the New York Giants’ fan base that they needed to add a wide receiver with the prototypical combination of size and speed. Names from the past like Plaxico Burress and Hakeem Nicks were thrown out there as the type of wide out New York needed to add. Let’s pump the brakes on that for a minute. You may or may not have noticed that what the NFL is looking for entering the league is changing. Many of the guys that fit the “prototypical” mold are falling on draft day. D.K. Metcalf and Hakeem Butler are perfect examples of this. Instead of “big and fast” wide receivers, the NFL is more attuned to investing in route runners. Really since the 2014 draft class that featured Odell Beckham Jr. of course, rookie receivers are not bursting onto the NFL scene like they once did. But the guys that are having early success are the top route runners such as Michael Thomas, Juju Smith Schuster and Cooper Kupp. Contested catch receivers and downfield threats are great and should always have a place in this league. But NFL offensive scheme designers are very adeptly catering passing games to what they are given from the college ranks. What that is are suspect pass protectors and young quarterbacks with a massive amount of college spread principles instilled in them when entering the league. NFL offenses need easier throws with quick reads. The ball needs to come out quick, on time and with accuracy. After the catch skills might be more important than the ability to outmuscle a cornerback for the football in the air nowadays. The other key component, and this surely hurt Metcalf’s draft stock, is the ability for receivers to align in many different locations. This is true for all offensive skill positions, but with the wide outs, we have historically seen many big and fast outside threats that align in just one spot to either the quarterback’s right or left. That is a huge hindrance to offensive play designers and also greatly limits what you can do with the four other potential pass catchers on the field. So while a guy like Metcalf certainly could excel with the Giants and would bring a dimension to the wide receiver position that is lacking since Beckham departed, it makes more sense to utilize the more versatile and more Daniel Jones-friendly group of pass catchers that New York currently has rostered. First off, Beckham could do it all. He is a transcendent player. Beckham brings all the attributes listed above into one package. But obviously he is gone. The Giants do have two speedy receivers with very limited route running skills in former first rounder Corey Coleman and New York’s fifth-round pick from this draft class, Darius Slayton. Maybe one or both can develop into more and in the meantime might be able to offer one dimension downfield. But it has to be noted that a big reason why Coleman has bounced around the league so much in such a short amount of time is that going back to his college days he has been a very limited route runner. Coleman and Slayton will not be the core of the Giants receivers though, obviously. Beckham alone is irreplaceable, but the group of Sterling Shepard Youth Deandre Baker Jersey , Golden Tate, Evan Engram and Saquon Barkley is awfully formidable while also being very much what Eli Manning and Daniel Jones need in order to succeed stylistically. Let’s stick with Jones’ strengths and weaknesses as a passer though before digging into who he will be distributing the ball to before long. Per Pro Football Focus, Jones’ numbers are massively better when targeting the middle of the field rather than outside the numbers. This also shows up in a big way when watching Jones on tape. He isn’t a power thrower and is clearly more comfortable targeting the middle of the field via in breaking rather than out breaking routes. The Giants would be wise to make crossing routes, slants and other in breaking routes the stable of their passing attack, especially from their wide receivers. For that to succeed, they need players with great burst out of their breaks, overall quickness more than speed as well as strong after the catch capabilities. All of those describe Shepard and Tate. Tate is the more physical of the two and has a thicker build that he uses better in contested situations and as a tackle breaker. But Shepard entered the league as a highly accomplished route runner and shows that body control, ability to set up his opponent and sharpness of cuts at the NFL level as well. Both can align outside or in the slot and stylistically, are excellent for what Pat Shurmur will be looking to create for Jones to have success with a lot of West Coast principles and considering his receivers, condensed formations. Also, don’t be surprised if New York’s RPO game revs up quite a bit more when the athletic Jones inevitably takes over as the starter. Engram and Barkley are obviously very different, but they can be lumped together since they are two of the very best at their respective positions in the league in the passing game. Engram might align outside the numbers more with Beckham gone, but that really isn’t his game. He does possess rare speed though and dynamic traits overall. The same is true for Barkley, but the second year superstar also adds in rare power for such a good receiving back. It also doesn’t hurt to have Barkley to hand the ball to or dump it off when the play breaks down. Barkley should be Jones’ best friend on game day. But none of this foursome does their best work as perimeter receivers. So, having big, strong and fast receivers sounds terrific and overall it isn’t a bad thing of course. The league is trending in a different direction right now and considering who will be behind center for the Giants, this team should rightfully lean in this direction as much as any offense in the NFL.Stats with Pat: After three games, trends developing for Giants We’re three games into the 2018 NFL season Womens Deandre Baker Jersey , so for this week’s stats column, let’s look at a few trends that have been developing.Photo by Tim Warner/Getty ImagesPersonnel Usage: 11-personnel still rulesIf you are like me, you had more than your fill of seeing the Giants offense line up in 11-personnel as often as they did under the previous coaching regime, Well, there’s good news and bad news tinged with good news on this front.Thus far under head coach Pat Shurmur, the Giants have mixed up their offensive personnel packages to include more 12-personnel (1 back, 2 tight ends) and 21-personnel (2 backs, 1 tight end), but with that said, 11-personnel continues to reign supreme when it comes to getting the job done.All 30 points scored by the Giants offensive playmakers (I’m not counting points scored by kicker Aldrick Rosas) have come from an 11-personnel lineup. Breaking that down a little bit further, 18 of the points have come from the shotgun formation while 12 of the points have come from the empty set. Further, 261 of the Giants 958 yards of offense (27.2 personnel) have come from the 11-personnel packages.So yeah, the Giants aren’t using 11-personnel as much as they did in previous years, but the package is still worth keeping in the playbook, largely thanks to the fact that they have more options and better skill players with which to work such as running back Saquon Barkley, tight end Evan Engram, and receivers Odell Beckham Jr. and Sterling Shepard.Odell Beckham Jr.Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty ImagesThird-down conversion rate improvesThe last time the Giants finished an NFL season with a third-down conversion percentage that was equal to better than the league average was in 2014 when their 42.98 percent was slightly better (by about 3.04 percent) than the league average of 39.94 percent.Thanks largely in part to their performance last week against the Texans in which the Giants converted 7 of 13 third-down attempts (54 percent), New York’s season-long third down conversion percentage is now at 44.19 percent.According to league stats Authentic Deandre Baker Jersey , that’s way ahead of the league’s 38.98 percent average and is a figure that is currently the seventh-best mark in the NFL. Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty ImagesLandon Collins’ “quiet” startAuthor and scholar Aaron Levenstein once summed up the love-hate relationship people have with statistics perfectly when he said, “Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.”Thus far this year, Giants strong safety Landon Collins epitomizes that sentiment.Through three games, Collins, who is in a contract year, has recorded just 16 total tackles, an average of 5.3 per game which has him currently tied for 18th in the league among safeties who have played at least 150 snaps.Per Pro Football Focus, Collins, who has cut down each season since his rookie year on missed tackles — he went from 15 as a rookie to 13 in 2016 and then 10 last year — has already racked up two missed tackles in three games.Collins was only too happy to explain what he believed to be behind his “quiet” start.“Honestly, it’s just when teams see me down (in the box), they expect me to blitz,” he said. “It’s getting to the fact where I’m not going to get those free blitzes; I gotta fight for them. “But when I do get one, I’m going to definitely take advantage of it.”Still, that doesn’t mean that Collins doesn’t think he can get better every day, especially in coverage where he has allowed 75 percent of the pass targets against him to be complete for 77 yards (12.78 yards per catch). He’s also already given up one touchdown (after only allowing two all of 2016 and 2017) and has just one pass breakup for a (thus far) career high 144.3 NFL Rating.“When I get my opportunities with the ball in the sky, then yes, I gotta fight for them. But I don’t get many opportunities because teams know who I am Deandre Baker Jersey Boys ,” he said.Also per Pro Football Focus, Collins has yet to record a pass pressure of any kind, this after recording double-digit pass pressures in each of his first three seasons.Given that Collins has historically been more of a box safety, it could be that those instances where he’s been caught in coverage have been a matter of the opponent getting the mismatch they desired. Collins said he’s perfectly fine if his numbers don’t match what he produced in his first three seasons so long as it means the Giants are winning.“It’s a team game, not an ‘I’ game,” he said. “We’re all gonna get stats in some way. I’m cool with it if I don’t have the 100 tackles because if we get the ‘W’ and are in the playoffs, then I’m good with not having 100 tackles I promise you.” Photo by Tim Warner/Getty ImagesSaquon inspiresRookie Saquon Barkley became the first player in franchise history to record more than 100 all-purpose yards from scrimmage in his first three games, yet the Giants are currently 1-2 in games played in which they’ve had a player with 100 or more all-purpose rushing yards.So that got me wondering just how important a player having 100 or more all-purpose yards really is to a game’s outcome. To find out, I went back to 2016 and looked at all 15 Giants regular-season wins over that period. What I found was that the Giants went 8-7 in games in which they had a player record 100 or more all-purpose yards, which would suggest that having such production isn’t necessarily a guarantee to win.However, where having a player record 100 or more all-purpose yards benefited the team over the sample period was in the scoring department. The Giants averaged 21.625 points per game in which they had a player go over 100 all-purpose yards. When they didn’t, they averaged 18.71 points per game.With the high-scoring Saints coming into town Sunday, the Giants probably would welcome having at least one if not more players on offense generating 100+ all-purpose yards.