With multiple wide receivers on the roster, the writing was on the wall: The New York Giants were expected to release veteran receiver Darius Slayton. Malik Nabers is expected to make his Week 1 return, while New York has already signed Darnell Mooney and Odell Beckham Jr. and also drafted Malachi Fields. Ultimately, the Giants released Slayton on Monday, just before the regular-season opener.
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Now, former NFL cornerback Joe Haden believes that it has long become a pattern in the NFL for teams to sign receivers to second contracts. However, once the guaranteed money is up and the player fails to make an impact, the team starts evaluating them based on performance. And after one poor season, you’re out of the team.
“Once you get that second contract, if you’re not hooping, if you’re not balling, once that guaranteed is up, even because most of the time they’re going to give it to you in your first year,” Haden told James Harrison. “So then the rest of the contract is performance-based. So they can really just chop you with nothing really owed…It’s really structured where we give you this guaranteed the first year. So it looks like $33M. You get your $12M guaranteed the first season.
“Now, the next season you can get $12 million, or we’re going to let you go for nothing because it’s like, okay, that was a bad sign. We gave him $12M for the first year. It didn’t work out…If you’re not performing to this $12 million a year, we can chop you, and now we can get somebody else for $1.3M. When Odell comes in, it’s like I don’t care what it looks like. We’re able to bite this bullet.”
Slayton was the longest-tenured Giants player after the team drafted him in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. Just ahead of the 2025 season, Slayton had signed a three-year, $36 million contract extension with $22 million guaranteed at the time of signing.
Once the Giants hired John Harbaugh as their next head coach, it’s safe to say that Slayton failed to find a spot in Harbaugh’s offense, especially after undergoing core-muscle surgery earlier this offseason. At the same time, the Giants had signed Odell Beckham Jr. to a one-year, $1.3 million deal, bringing him back to the roster.
And the fact that the Giants cleared about $3 million in 2026 salary-cap space after releasing Slayton and signed Beckham Jr. to a $1.3 million deal prompted two-time Super Bowl champion James Harrison to believe that Beckham Jr. may have played a role in Slayton getting cut from the Giants.
“I think Odell got him out of there,” said Harrison.
Giants drafted Odell Beckham Jr. in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft. Across five seasons in New York, the receiver recorded 390 receptions for 5476 yards and 44 touchdowns before the Cleveland Browns acquired him. Ahead of the 2026 season, the Giants brought him back on the roster after the receiver missed the entire 2025 season.
Slayton, meanwhile, spent seven seasons in New York, recording 296 receptions for 4435 yards and 22 touchdowns. Now, he’s not eligible for waivers as a vested veteran and is free to sign elsewhere.