The Giants lost Saquon Barkley to season-ending IR, of course, and they've now lost Sterling Shepard for at least the next three games with a turf toe injury. New York faces San Francisco this week, so not a great matchup, but it's a banged-up San Francisco defense, too.
With Shepard out, and the 49ers missing most of last year's pass rush (DeForest Buckner traded, Nick Bosa on IR, Dee Ford out with a back injury), the Giants passing game should have some success this week. That means Evan Engram, Golden Tate and Darius Slayton. With one less mouth to feed in the passing game, all those guys look intriguing.
With the wide receivers in particular, there's some nice evidence to support how they might fare with Shepard out of the mix.
Slayton caught 8 touchdowns last season, and 4 came in the five games Shepard missed due to a concussion. Tate caught 6 TDs, and half of those, too, came in the five games Shepard missed. Slayton had a couple of dud games, but he was a rookie, and has been around for a year now. On two occasions he caught a pair of touchdowns.
| TATE WITH SHEPARD OUT LAST YEAR | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Opp | No | Yds | TD |
| at N.E. | 6 | 102 | 1 |
| Ariz. | 6 | 80 | 0 |
| at Det. | 8 | 85 | 0 |
| Dall. | 6 | 42 | 0 |
| at NYJ | 4 | 95 | 2 |
| Total | 30 | 404 | 3 |
| SLAYTON WITH SHEPARD OUT LAST YEAR | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Opp | No | Yds | TD |
| at N.E. | 3 | 32 | 0 |
| Ariz. | 2 | 28 | 0 |
| at Det. | 2 | 50 | 2 |
| Dall. | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| at NYJ | 10 | 121 | 2 |
| Total | 18 | 237 | 4 |
Not an easy matchup this week, perhaps, but San Francisco had a lot of trouble staying with Arizona's wideouts (especially DeAndre Hopkins) in Week 1, and even the Jets had a pair of 6-catch wideouts in Chris Hogan and Braxton Berrios last week.
--Andy Richardson