Philadelphia Eagles: Darius Slay and Darius Slayton just can’t co-exist
By trading for Darius Slay earlier this offseason, the Philadelphia Eagles have kicked off an NFC East names race with New York Giants receiver Darius Slayton.
In 2019, the New York Giants used the 171st overall pick in the NFL Draft to select Darius Slayton, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound wide receiver out of Auburn.
Talk about a pleasant surprise.
While expectations for Slayton weren’t particularly high, as he never surpassed 700 yards in a single season over his three seasons with the Tigers, the then-22-year-old actually turned in a very respectable rookie campaign – hauling in 48 catches for 740 yards and eight touchdowns as Daniel Jones‘ favorite outside receiving option.
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Despite playing alongside the likes of Sterling Shepard, Evan Engram, Golden Tate, and Saquon Barkley, Slayton led the Giants in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns.
In a lot of ways, Slayton’s final college season is very reminiscent of Jalen Reagor‘s, in that Auburn had just lost Jarret Stidham and was running an offensive scheme that didn’t highlight their top receivers’ authentic gifts.
‘Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Slayton sounds great but what on Earth does this have to do with the Philadelphia Eagles?’
Well, I think you know where I’m going here. Heck, the title alone should give it away.
In addition to having picked up more yards than all of the Eagles’ wide receivers in 2019, an embarrassing problem we’ve discussed ad nauseam here at Section 215, Slayton also shares the majority of his name with a player he may face off against later this fall; South Philly’s new transplant from the Motor City, Darius Slay.
Kind of obvious now, right? I mean, Darius Slay’s entire name is in Darius Slayton’s.
Why is this relevant outside of being a fun fact? Well, having two players named Darius Slay is kind of a nightmare from a writer’s perspective.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve attempted to type in ‘Darius Slay’ on Pro Football Reference only to see a Giants wide receiver take his place. Is this the worst thing in the world? No, I’ll be the first to admit it’s a first world, champagne problem that (probably) only affects me, but even still, its a rather unique situation to have a pair of players with basically the same name in the same division, right?
I mean Darius Slay, and by extension, Darius Slayton, is a rather cool and unique name, how crazy is it that two separate families settled on it? I wonder if they both go by nicknames like ‘Big Play Slay’?
Funnily enough, Slay, and Slayton even have relatively comparable body compositions, in that the duo both stand between 6-foot and 6-foot-1, both weigh 190-pounds, and they even ran near identical sub-4.4 40s at their respective combines. If the duo do matchup later this fall, an outcome that would make sense for Jim Schwartz, it would actually shape up to be a pretty interesting one-on-one, even if Slay is by far the more decorated player.
And with 2020 set to be Slayton’s sophomore season, this ‘two players with similar names’ trend could continue on for years, literally.
Next. Philadelphia lucks out on Thursday Night Football. dark
Will one player outlive the other in the cut-throat world of the NFC East? Will either player become the certified star their respective franchises desperately crave at the position? Will Slay and Slayton exchange jerseys or pull off a ‘Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme’ when the duo face off on Thursday Night Football in Week 7? Needless to say, classify this one under ‘developing’, Philadelphia Eagles fans.