One New York Giants wide receiver has already noticed a difference in practicing with quarterback Russell Wilson.
Veteran receiver Darius Slayton threw some shade at the team’s previous quarterbacks when noting that Wilson has energized his wide receivers during offseason camps. Slayton said that sometimes, wide receivers running deep routes are rewarded by Wilson, when that was not necessarily the case with previous quarterbacks.
“There’s certain plays where the ball’s designed to go certain places. In his head, he might be in the huddle and go ‘Hey, you’ve got the post here, but you’re not dead,'” Slayton said. “A lot of times, you might run a post corner, whatever different concepts, and the guy underneath always gets the ball. When you’re the guy running deep, you’re just kind of running for love. He’ll be like, ‘Hey, alert here, if the safety drops, I’ll give it to you,’ and he’s done it multiple times over camp.
“You’re going to run anyways, but it gives you a little extra juice. I could really get the ball right here.”
Darius Slayton on the mentality change at Giants QB w/ Russell Wilson.
— Dan Schneier (@DanSchneierNFL) June 16, 2025
"A lot of the times you'd run a vertical concept and the ball keeps going underneath, underneath, but Russ will alert you "hey if the safety drops, I'll get you the ball" and he's actually done it a lot in… pic.twitter.com/1uTwK0mNCb
Slayton probably isn’t trying to criticize the likes of Daniel Jones, but there does seem to be a different energy in camp with Wilson. Jones’ inability to push the ball down the field was a major storyline for the Giants last season, so one can understand why it would be exciting to be working with a more aggressive quarterback in Wilson.
Slayton was already enthusiastic about the Wilson signing. He seems even happier with it now that they’ve had the chance to play together.
