Jones, Waller, Hyatt shine as Giants offense clicks
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Tight end Darren Waller and rookie wide receiver Jalin Hyatt are living up to all the hype that surrounded them coming to the New York Giants.
The 30-year-old Waller has developed a strong rapport with Daniel Jones since being acquired in a trade from Las Vegas, clearly emerging as the quarterback’s top option.
A speedy third-round draft pick out of Tennessee, Hyatt has been the main deep threat since the Giants opened training camp.
Jones, Waller and Hyatt put on a show Friday night as the Giants beat the Carolina Panthers 21-19.
The Jones-Waller combination hooked up three times for 30 yards as New York’s first-team offense opened the game with a 10play, 75-yard drive that Jones culminated with a 4yard pass to Daniel Bellinger.
“He’s a player that you can use in different roles relative to where he lines up at the line of scrimmage or outside the line of scrimmage,” coach Brian Daboll said of Waller on Saturday.
“He’s capable of doing those things. So it gives you some flexibility in terms of formation and personnel usage and things like that. And he’s done that throughout his career. He’s a good guy to have on your team and work with.”
Jones actually targeted the 6-foot-6 Waller on the first three plays of the opening drive. The first one went for 6 yards, the second 12 and the third was dropped. The other one he caught later in the drive was for 12 yards.
“He’s a big target,” said Jones, who completed 8 of 9 passes for 69 yards. “He runs good routes, creates separation, he’s an easy guy to find. So, yeah, he’s a talented player, smart guy, understands defense, understands where we’re trying to use him and how to get open.”
Waller was one of the NFL’s best tight ends in 2019 and ’20 when he caught a combined 197 passes for 12 touchdowns and had at least 1,000 yards in each season. His total dipped to 55 catches in 2021 and he had 28 receptions in an injury-marred 2022.
With the Giants, Waller is again looking great. He credited hard work with creating his rapport with Jones.
“Just continuing to get reps in, knowing where each other is — the timing we want,” Waller said. “Where we expect each other to be, where I expect the ball to be, where he expects me to be when he releases something, so just a lot of time on task.”
Hyatt had one touch on the opening drive and it was a short toss that resulted in a 3-yard loss. He was much better later in the half and caught a wideopen 33-yard touchdown pass from Tyrod Taylor just before halftime. He made a downfield move on safety Eric Rowe that created plenty of space. out around the fact that, in the back of your mind, you might actually be worried about” retirement, she said. “So why would you not think about retiring? Why would you not think about how your skills are transferable” once you retire?
In his early 30s and with one child — he and wife, Chelsea, would go on to have two more kids — Hardee thought he was set for success after his track career ended.
He found new roles and new purposes — as a family man, a track commentator for NBC and a high-performance trainer. He felt he had turned the page so effortlessly.
Maybe too effortlessly. Hardee concedes he struggled to voice his concerns. It was difficult to let anyone in — not his wife, who could have offered her own insights as a retired world-class pole vaulter, or his friends, some of whom also forged similar career paths as elite athletes.
Hardee said that in retirement he didn’t utilize any of the mental-health services that have become increasingly available through the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and USA Track and Field, both of
“Those are the ones that are absolutely the hardest ones, when you are viewing the ball, sometimes you take your focus somewhere else and drop the ball,” said Hyatt, who finished with four catches for 35 yards.
Saints: Tight end Jimmy Graham was in the midst of a “medical episode” and was disoriented when he was taken into custody in the Los Angeles area and transported to a hospital, the team said Saturday. Graham was stopped by police on Friday night while reportedly wandering in traffic and booked on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance. The Saints announced Graham has been evaluated by team doctor John Amoss, was released from a hospital on Saturday morning and was back with the team as it prepared for a preseason game on Sunday night against the Los Angeles Chargers. The team said Amoss determined Graham “likely” was suffering the effects of a seizure when he was apprehended on Friday night. Graham spent the night under medical supervision and testing, the team said. which played a role in his training over the years.
“You don’t know what you don’t know,” he said of the benefits of the later counseling he underwent.
“You can plan and plan and plan, but unless you’ve been talking to a professional and you’ve been really working just on yourself — and this isn’t about a job, this isn’t about having a fallback plan, this isn’t about a safety net. This is about your soul and your consciousness.”
Now, a year after his darkest moment, things look and feel different around the Hardee household.
Some of the pictures and memorabilia that had been stashed away in closets or dusty corners, lest they bring up memories of the career he was trying to leave behind, are re-emerging. One of his favorite pictures — of him throwing a discus — now has a prime spot near the piano.
To one of the world’s most finely tuned athletes, a man who had to master not one, but 10 different events to become a two-time world champion, the simple act of placing some memories of his career back into the foreground represented one of his most consequential breakthroughs.