The New York Giants have been a proud franchise for a very long time and have produced many star players. Entering 2024, the Giants will be entering their 100th season as an NFL franchise as throughout those 100 seasons, they’ve won four Super Bowls and have seen many players get inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Players from the likes of Eli Manning, Phil Simms, and Lawrence Taylor to name a few, it is safe to say the New York Giants have done a great job in drafting and signing many talented players. However, there have been some players that when the Giants have either signed or drafted, never really turned out how the team would have hoped. These three former players who played for the New York Giants did not have the careers in New York they envisioned. Who were they?
Running Back David Wilson
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Fresh off winning Super Bowl 46 over the New England Patriots in 2012, the New York Giants used that last pick in round one of the NFL Draft that season to draft Running Back David Wilson. Wilson played his college ball for Virginia Tech and the New York Giants were confident that his displayed speed would be a huge lift for them on offense. That was not the case.
Despite turnovers being a problem for Wilson during his short-lived NFL career, Wilson looked like he was everything the Giants could have hoped for. Perhaps his most memorable NFL game came against the New Orleans Saints in Week 14 during the 2012 season where he accumulated 327 all-purpose yards in a 52-27 win for “Big Blue.” The speedster returned four kickoffs for 227 yards, one of them being a 97-yard return for a touchdown, and he also ran for 100 yards on just 13 carries for two scores.
Wilson however could not replicate his 2012 season, and in Week 5 of the 2013 season, he was placed on season-ending injured reserve with spinal stenosis. He hoped he could come back and play the following year in 2014 but after undergoing neck surgery, he still was not at 100% and was forced to retire. Who knows what could have happened if these injuries never occurred, but it is safe to say that David Wilson’s tenure in New York never panned out.
Wide Receiver Rueben Randle
Wideout Rueben Randle was fairly consistent throughout his career for the Giants, he just was not the right fit for them. New York drafted Randle out of LSU with their second-round draft pick, but the Giants did not think he was the right fit for them going forward.
Randle played for New York in just four seasons and had a very up-and-down tenure with the New York Giants. The wider receiver had just 298 yards receiving during his rookie season and 611 in year two. While he did have a career-high in both receiving yards and receptions in 2014 with 938 yards on 71 catches, 2015 was a down year for him as he took a major step back with just 797 yards catching. Randle could not rebound from that as the Giants decided to release him after the 2015 season.
Despite having brief tenures with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2016 and the Chicago Bears in 2017, he never got his career back on track. It would have been really interesting to see if he could’ve played better, but New York decided to give up on him which made his tenure for the New York Giants disappointing.
Wide Receiver Kadarius Toney
Is this selection a surprise? Despite this list containing all offensive players and two wide receivers, every Giants fan can agree that Wide Receiver Kadarius Toney was a disaster with the New York Giants. New York used their first-round pick to draft Toney back in 2021 out of Florida and this selection seems to be a rubber stamp on Dave Gettleman’s awful tenure as New York Giants general manager.
While Toney did show some flashes of being a star as his best game came back in 2021 against the Dallas Cowboys when he had 10 catches for 189 yards which was a Giants rookie record, he was still a failure in New York. Toney missed four weeks that season with an oblique injury and 2022 was an even bigger disaster for him and the New York Giants as Toney recorded just two receptions for zero yards. He missed five games for the Giants that season with a hamstring injury which resulted in the Giants trading him to the Kansas City Chiefs for a third-round draft pick.
Toney was a complete failure for the New York Giants and was perhaps one of the worst first-round draft picks in recent memory for them. Hey, if it makes Giants fans feel any better, Toney’s tenure in Kansas City has not been exactly ideal either as he’s faced even more criticism there as well.
