The New York Giants Weakness at Wide Receiver

New York sports has acquired a second "Shot Heard Around the World" in an interesting way.

The first "shot" being the famous walk off home run by New York Giants Bobby Thomson off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca at the Polo Grounds to win the National League pennant in 1951.

The second one occurred on the night of November 28, 2008 when, interestingly, New York sports has acquired a second "Shot Heard Around the World."

New York Giants star receiver Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg at a night club.

The Giants lost him for the rest of the season and would later go on to cut him from the team. The loss of Plaxico proved to be a dramatic and season-altering one for the Giants.

Prior to the shooting, the defending Super Bowl champs were rolling with a 10-1 record. Following the loss of Burress to injury, the Giants went on to lose four of their next six games, including a home loss to the division rival Eagles.

Needless to say, Burress was a vital part of the Giants offense, as well as the man behind the game-winning touchdown catch in Super Bowl XLII against the then-undefeated New England Patriots.

This offseason, the Giants not only cut Burress but also let go of veteran Amani Toomer, leaving a receiving corps that is one of the youngest and most inexperienced in the league.

The Giants hope this season’s draft will help fill the Burress gap. They spent their first round pick on Hakeem Nicks from UNC and traded up in the third round with the Philadelphia Eagles to pick up a raw, but physically gifted, prospect in Ramses Barden out of Cal-Poly.

Nicks is considered to have some of the best hands in the draft and Barden is a receiver with one of the biggest upsides in the draft due to his physical gifts that include a height of 6'6".

As much as the Giants focused on stockpiling receivers in the 2009 Draft in order to compensate for the loss of Burress and Toomer, the position is still the most glaring weakness on a team that is otherwise stockpiled with talent.

The problem with the Giants receiving core is that their most veteran player is now seventh-year player David Tyree, who is famous for his helmet catch in Super Bowl XLII. As famous as it was, Tyree was drafted for his special teams ability, not his skills at receiver. The player most likely to take the number one spot on the depth chart at the start of the season is third-year player Steve Smith.

Smith has great hands and runs great routes, but he is physically lacking in size at 5’11", 195 lbs., to be a dominant number-one man. Look for him to take the role left by Toomer as a solid possession receiver.

Dominik Hixon, Burress’ potential heir to the throne after he went down, left much to be desired in the last games of the season.

Before Burress went down, Hixon displayed excellent potential playing the slot between Burress and Toomer and is a gifted kick returner on special teams. But he struggled as a starter and will probably be replaced by one of the draftees and will probably be moved back to the slot, where he had much success last season.

Unfortunately, Hakeem Nicks and Ramses Barden are not likely to be the answer the Giants are looking for, at least not right out of the gate. The receiver position in the NFL is a position known for it’s high learning curve and failure rate. It would be ludicrous to expect anything different from the crop the Giants drafted this off season.

Look for opposing teams to continue the game plan that forced the Giants to drop four of their last six the previous season.

Opposing defenses will leave their corner backs on an island with the receivers as opposed to when they used to double up on Burress.

They will dare the Giants to throw the ball to an inexperienced group of receivers and defenses will focus most of their attention on stopping the talented running back Brandon Jacobs.

Look for the Giants to regret not trading one of their two second-round picks and a lower pick for veteran and All-Pro receiver Anquan Boldin and Eli Manning having a rough time getting his ball to a group of raw receivers on a team otherwise stocked with experience and talent.