Giants rookie wide receiver Jalin Hyatt is playing the hand he's dealt

Jalin Hyatt is fast, really fast.

He’s eager to contribute. He’s a team guy.

He also has experienced something of a battle with himself when it comes to athletics. As in, which hand is dominant in which sport?

His parents, Enevelyn and Jamie Hyatt, are lefthanded. His younger brother, Devin, who plays football at the University of Arizona, is righthanded.

Somewhere, Jalin fits in as a multi-dimensional athlete whose dominant hand changes, depending on the situation.

“I write with my left,” he said. “I throw a football and shoot a basketball with my right. If I went to a golf course and hit a ball, it’s with my left.”

Hyatt said the first time he thought about this was in second or third grade.

“I played quarterback when I was a little boy,” he said, “and one of my teachers asked me why I didn’t throw with my left hand. She said, ‘You write with your left hand in class, you do [schoolwork] with your left.’

“That’s kind of when I realized I was different,” Hyatt said, laughing.

In the Giants’ locker room, ping pong is popular. What about ping pong?

“All left,” he said. “I’m all switched up.”

Hyatt has one wish on this topic.

“It’s one hand or the other,” he said. “I wish I could do everything with both hands.”

When he played baseball, he tried to swing as a righty.

“Can’t do it,” he said.

He eats with his left hand, with one notable exception: “If I’m cutting a steak, I’d use my right,” Hyatt said while shaking his head.

“Everything’s random,” he added.

There also has been a random feeling to his usage on game days.

The Giants’ 2023 third-round draft pick has big-play ability. No safety can hang with him in a foot race. Some cornerbacks can’t, either.

With two games to play, Hyatt has made an impact on the Giants but not, perhaps, the impact that was expected of the former Tennessee wide receiver.

Hyatt came to the Giants as the winner of the Biletnikoff Award, given to the best receiver in college football, but h

is opportunities have been scarce.

“Jalin’s doing everything we’ve asked him to do,’’ coach Brian Daboll said Wednesday. “We [as coaches] got to do a good job with that, too.”

The implication seemed to be that the Giants have to call his number for him to contribute.

Hyatt had a breakout performance with five receptions for 109 yards in the Giants’ 10-7 win over the Patriots on Nov. 26. In the three games that followed, he had two targets for 13 yards.

Hyatt has 19 catches for 343 yards this season, a per-catch average of 18.1 yards. If he had enough receptions to qualify for league rankings, that would place him second in the league behind only San Francisco’s Brandon Aiyuk.

Hyatt, 22, is the Giants’ most explosive receiver since Odell Beckham Jr.

At the beginning of the season, Sterling Shepard and Daniel Jones decided that Hyatt should move his locker to the empty one between theirs.

Hyatt said Shepard “is like a big brother to me. He’s critiquing my routes because he cares.” Hyatt spent Thanksgiving with Shepard and his family.

Shepard marvels at Hyatt’s gifts, saying he “tracks the ball well and has deep speed with the best of them.”

Defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson is another veteran who makes an effort to help rookies with the adjustment to the NFL.

First, however, there was some tough love.

“He went to Alabama, I went to Tennessee,” Hyatt said. “The first thing he told me was, ‘Tennessee sucks.’ ”

Even months later, Hyatt laughed again.

In Hyatt, Robinson said he sees “a great guy that wants to learn. Someone that is accountable with everything, from watching film to the way he takes care of his body to what he needs to do on the field. And he has Shep guiding him as well. These things matter.”

If there is any bitterness about how his rookie year has played out, Hyatt hides it well.

“I’m not disappointed,” he said. “I think people think I’m disappointed about things, but I’m not, because in this league, from what I’ve learned so far, it’s all about your opportunities. We have great players in here. I look up to a lot of these guys in this room.”

And deep down, Hyatt knows he will get his chance.

“You’ve just got to be prepared when your time comes,” he said. “The reason I’m not disappointed is because I know my time’s coming. I have so much faith and belief in myself. I’m a very, very, very confident player. And I’ve always been.”

By Kimberly Jones

kimberly.jones@newsday.comkimjonessports

Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.