Darren Waller may be exactly what Daniel Jones needed
Raiders tight end Darren Waller runs into the end zone to score on a 24-yard touchdown pass during the first half of an NFL game against the 49ers on Jan. 1. Credit: AP/John Locher
Unlike some quarterbacks (cough, cough) Daniel Jones did not present the Giants with a wish list of roster demands before agreeing to terms with the team on a new contract. He didn’t even have suggestions.
“None of that was discussed specifically,” Jones said last week, after inking his deal, regarding all of the conversations that took place to keep him with the Giants without using the franchise tag. “We were focused on my deal, and I was focused on my business and getting the deal done.”
How refreshing.
If Jones HAD wanted the Giants to add some offensive toys to play with, though, he probably would not have had the gumption to ask for Darren Waller. One of the top tight ends in the league when he is healthy, Waller still had four seasons left on the contract he signed with the Raiders last offseason and seemed firmly entrenched with the rebuilding offense in Las Vegas. Even if Waller somehow wiggled into free agency, he probably would have been well beyond the Giants’ financial means.
Some of the best gifts we receive are the ones we never even knew we wanted.
The Giants held true to their vow to continue building their offense around Jones when they traded for Waller on Tuesday. With only a few enticing names available at wide receiver on the open market, Joe Schoen and Co. got creative. They stopped looking for players who are pigeonholed into positions and came up with Waller, as much a big-bodied threat in the passing game as any receiver despite his tight end designation.
Not only should Waller help Jones, but he also figures to open up opportunities for Saquon Barkley just as he did for the NFL’s leading rusher, Josh Jacobs, when on the field last season.
That the Giants acquired him for the third-round compensatory pick they received when they traded Kadarius Toney to Kansas City last fall served as the flourish to Schoen’s landing.
This isn’t the first time the team has tried to help Jones by providing him with targets. That was the thinking two years ago when the Giants signed Kenny Golladay and then drafted Toney. That was the hope when they drafted Wan’Dale Robinson last April.
Nor is this the first time the Giants have tried to fill the tight end position with an honest-to-goodness playmaker, efforts that reach as far back as the selections of Travis Beckum and Adrien Robinson and include such free agency clunkers as Kyle Rudolph, Rhett Ellison and Brandon Myers. Some swings were nearly sweet – Evan Engram and Martellus Bennett flashed but didn’t do quite enough to stick around – but the Giants haven’t hit a homer at the position since the days of Jeremy Shockey and, to a slightly lesser degree, Kevin Boss.
It's a shame, too, because if there is an offensive position Giants fans are most drawn to, more so even than quarterback, it is tight end. Men of a certain age still get misty-eyed talking about Mark Bavaro pulling a Conestoga full of 49ers down the field. Howard Cross and Aaron Thomas played the position when it was more of a sixth offensive lineman than a threat in an increasingly vertical aerial game.
This one feels different, though. Not just because Waller isn’t necessarily that type of traditional blue-collar player (that’s a role moving forward that seems more appropriate for last year’s promising rookie, Daniel Bellinger).
But also because it could work. It should work.
This has already been a disorientingly solid and competent offseason for the Giants, one in which things seem to be working out for them. Funny how that happens with a little preparation and forethought. They kept Jones and Barkley. They fortified their defense on the first day of free agent negotiations. Now, they are adding Waller.
Jones may not have even known he wanted Waller.
With any luck, by the early stages of next season, he won’t remember how he got along without him.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
