New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson Julian Leshay Guadalupe/NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Recent History Suggests Russell Wilson Can Fix This Lagging NY Giants’ Stat

Originally posted on New York Giants on SI
By Patricia Traina | Last updated Jul 8, 2025 5:00 AM ET

By now, it’s no secret that the New York Giants, who have the speed and skillset at receiver to slice the top off defenses, aspire to be more of a deep ball passing offense. A closer look at the stats shows just how much of a struggle it was for the Giants’ passing game on the deep ball.

Last season, the Giants ranked 29th on passes that went for 20+ air yards. New York, which threw for 3,521 total yards, got 463 of those yards on the deep ball.

That, according to TruMedia, is well below the 734.8 league-wide average of teams that generated yardage on pass attempts of 20+ air yards.

Included Russell Wilson when I wrote about the Browns' FA QB options last month. Russ remains one of the best deep ball throwers in the NFL but fell off as the Steelers lost their final five games. During that stretch, Wilson ranked bottom 10 in the league in completion…
— Daniel Oyefusi (@DanielOyefusi) March 12, 2025

The Giants’ 3,521 total passing yards, by the way, were accumulated by their four quarterbacks – Daniel Jones, Drew Lock, Tommy DeVito, and Tim Boyle – combined.

To put that number into perspective, 17 quarterbacks threw for more than that total just by themselves, with six quarterbacks (Lamar Jackson, Sam Darnold, Geno Smith, Baker Mayfield, Jared Goff, and Joe Burrow) throwing for more than 4,100 yards last season.

The good news for the Giants is that they have a veteran quarterback who last year had more success with throwing the deep ball than any of the Giants’ signal callers from a season ago.

Russell Wilson, the projected starter, racked up 681 yards on passes of 20+ air yards (27.4% of his total yardage), with 358 of those (along with three of his touchdowns) coming on third down.

If Wilson still has enough juice left in his arm, that plus the Giants speedsters at receiver should make for a much more exciting and versatile offense this fall.

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