SEATTLE — There’s a place Darius Slayton makes his mind go when adversity hits.
He can still see it — back home in Georgia, almost 20 years ago, when he was a scrawny kid striving to one day play in the NFL. For Slayton, that place feels so pure, so comforting. And he finds it in tough moments big and small — the pay cut he was forced into taking two years ago, his drop early Sunday’s game at the Seahawks.
It is, he admits, a bit of self-therapy — a way to recalibrate his brain and avoid having negativity gnaw at him.
“When I was 9 years old and I was dreaming about going to the NFL, I wasn’t thinking about how much I was going to get paid or pay cuts,” he told NJ Advance Media on Sunday evening in the Giants’ locker room. “I just wanted to play ball. That’s where I take my mind in those moments.”
He’s a grown man now, 27 years old, with a thick skin from five-plus seasons of NFL ups and downs. So when adversity hit again Sunday, he found that peaceful spot — and he responded.
Slayton’s eight catches and 122 yards — including the go-ahead 30-yard touchdown — helped the Giants shock the Seahawks, 29-20. In Slayton’s 82 career games, he’s had just two with more yards. The Giants badly needed him Sunday, with Malik Nabers and Devin Singletary out.
Slayton delivered — after recovering from a drop on his first target Sunday. It was his fourth drop of the season, already in Week 5, and his third in the past two games. He now has 30 drops in his career. But after being so minimally involved in the first four games — amid Nabers’ electric start — Slayton put all that behind him in Seattle.
He didn’t dwell on that early drop. He didn’t think about how he had just 15 targets and 10 catches in the first four weeks, despite playing 81% of the snaps.
He moved on — just like he always has in the NFL.
It happened in London two years ago, after new general manager Joe Schoen forced him into a pay cut and new coach Brian Daboll barely played him to begin the season. Then, in Week 5 in London, he hung 79 yards on the Packers and helped the Giants improve to 4-1.
Sure enough, it happened again Sunday in Seattle — another Week 5 gem from Slayton.
He knows an early drop — like he had Sunday — would’ve bugged him for longer as a younger player. Not anymore. Not after all he has experienced during this NFL career of highs and lows — a journey that thickened his skin and helped him mature.
“It’s been long,” Slayton said of the path to get here. “It’s been rough at times. But at the end of the day, I know how I work and I know how I prepare. I know that I will be ready when my opportunities come.
“And I know that I’ll capitalize on them 99 percent of the time. So I can’t worry about the 1 percent, like early in the game where I drop one. I know I’m going to make the next however many I had after that. I know that I’ll show what I can do and what I’m worth if I get a chance.”
Slayton’s chance Sunday came on his fifth of 11 targets, early in the third quarter. He hauled in a 41-yard deep pass from Daniel Jones, with the game tied at 10. Slayton was flagged for a questionable unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after that play. He shrugged it off and caught his next target — the 30-yard deep-ball touchdown.
The Giants led for the rest of the game, as Jones and Slayton — at least for a week — buried all those concerns about this offense’s lack of deep-ball production.
“We hit the shots that everybody has been saying we need to hit,” Slayton said with his usual sly smile.
After that touchdown, he paced the sideline, yelling encouragement at teammates. This is Slayton now — no longer that quiet rookie from 2019, but a seen-it-all veteran in a receiver room that needs his leadership, even if he’s not inclined to be a big screamer.
“Let’s go, man!” Slayton told his teammates. “We’re rolling! We’ve just got to keep going!”
Slayton knew the Giants were coming off a touchdown-less dud of a loss to Dallas. He felt all the “negative noise” swirling around his team amid a 1-3 start. He saw how terribly the Giants’ first drive ended Sunday — with that 102-yard fumble return and 7-0 deficit.
And in that moment, on the sideline, he hoped to leave it all behind.
“I just wanted to galvanize the guys, feed life into them,” he said.
He wanted them to be resilient.
“That’s just who we’re trying to become as a team,” he said.
Slayton knows resilience. He also knows avoiding a 1-4 start and instead sitting at 2-3 after five weeks doesn’t mean a ton for the rest of Daboll’s hot-seat third season. There’s a long path ahead.
Nabers might return next week against the Bengals, as the Giants return to MetLife Stadium hoping to build on this stunner in Seattle — and finally score a touchdown at home.
So yeah, maybe Slayton goes back to barely being targeted, just like the first four weeks. But he can’t worry about that, just like he didn’t let it annoy him before Sunday. He knows nothing good can come from letting that happen.
“I wouldn’t have been ready,” he said. “I wouldn’t have prepared the same. I don’t have time for that.”
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Darryl Slater may be reached at [email protected].
