NY Giants WR Jalin Hyatt Looking to Pull His Career Out of the Darkness

It wasn’t hard to miss New York Giants receiver Jalin Hyatt’s frustration last season.

The team’s third-round pick in the 2023 draft–and a player they traded up to get–Hyatt competed last summer with Darius Slayton for the WR2 spot on the team but couldn’t pull it out after a shaky preseason performance.

From there, it was all downhill for the former Tennessee receiver. Hyatt, who as a rookie appeared in 51% of the Giants’ offensive snaps, saw that number plummet to 33% last year.

With that came a decline in his offensive deployment. Hyatt, who has yet to score a touchdown in the NFL, went from being targeted 40 times as a rookie to 19 times in his second season, catching just eight of those pass targets for a measly 62 yards.

Hyatt was so frustrated by year’s end that he spoke about his disappointment over how his second season went, stating his intentions to seek answers from head coach Brian Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen.

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Hyatt Aims to Rise from the Ashes

Whatever it was they told him, Hyatt came to the team’s 2025 spring program significantly bulked up and locked in. 

“I played at like 170, 171 last year. About 194, 195 now,” Hyatt said on a recent episode of the Big Blue Huddle podcast. “I’m telling you, that’s what darkness does to you.”

The added weight didn’t appear to hurt Hyatt’s speed or quickness as he seeks to get a bigger role than what he had last year. If anything, it should help him outmuscle defenders for contested catches, of which he’s seven of 15 in his career (46.7%).

The added bulk should also help him with downfield blocking if he’s not going to be the primary target.

Until a left leg injury suffered on the first day of the team’s mandatory minicamp hit, Hyatt was, without question, one of the standouts from the spring as he sought to convince Schoen and Daboll that they don’t need to bring in Gabe Davis, with whom the team checked in on last month, or anyone else for that matter to fill a role that Hyatt knows he can fill.

“I had good conversations with Dabs and Joe Schoen after last year about what we can do to have a better year three,” Hyatt said. 

“One of the things I pointed out was that I want to move around. I don’t want to just stay on the outside. I played slot at Tennessee, and I want to fill that slot again and at the same time still play outside.”

Hyatt’s hard work has caught Daboll and his teammates' attention this spring.

“He's done a nice job for us at this camp. He's trying to improve the things that we set out for him to improve,” Daboll said during the mandatory minicamp earlier this month.

“I think (quarterback) Russ (Wilson) has done a nice job of developing a relationship with Jalin. Russ sits in the front, and Jalin sits right behind him... So, there's a lot of good communication flow with those guys, and he's done a nice job of trying to improve the things that we ask him to improve on.”

“Jalin, I'm excited about him and what he's done so far,” Wilson said, adding that he “really believes” in Hyatt, whom he predicted “will have a great year this year.” 

The Giants can only hope that Wilson’s prediction about Hyatt is correct as the offense looks to become more explosive in the coming season.  

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