7:58pm: Fowler reports the Eagles were also involved in Mooney’s market. Philadelphia already has a pair of established starting wideouts in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, although Brown’s Eagles future remains in doubt. It will be interesting to see which remaining free agent wideouts find themselves as the subject of a pursuit from Philadelphia.
4:48pm: The Giants continue to add free agents for new head coach John Harbaugh. The newest addition will provide another weapon for second-year quarterback Jaxson Dart as ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reports that wide receiver Darnell Mooney will be signing with New York. According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, Mooney plans to join the Giants on a one-year deal worth up to $10MM. 
New York has been busy retooling the roster under the leadership of Harbaugh. On offense, the team took care of business re-signing pending free agents like starting right tackle Jermaine Eluemunor and depth pieces like offensive guard Evan Neal and wide receiver Isaiah Hodgins. Some bigger pieces have fallen through the cracks as wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson, tight end Daniel Bellinger, and backup center Austin Schlottmann have all departed in free agency for Tennessee, but the Giants have done a good job of restocking positions with signees like wide receiver Calvin Austin and tight end Isaiah Likely.
Mooney becomes the newest addition to a retooled offense for Dart that now features (when healthy) Cam Skattebo, Tyrone Tracy, and Devin Singletary at running back, Pat Ricard at fullback, Malik Nabers, Darius Slayton, Calvin Austin, and Mooney at wide receiver, and Theo Johnson and Likely at tight end. Dart will have no shortage of new toys to play with in his sophomore campaign under new leadership.
Mooney will head to New York after a two-year stint with the Falcons. Atlanta signed Mooney coming off his rookie contract with the Bears on a three-year, $39MM deal. The signing initially appeared to be a huge success as Mooney finished second to Drake London in all receiving categories with 64 catches for 992 yards and five touchdowns on an offense that finished fifth in the NFL in passing yards. Year 2 told a different story for Mooney as he only recorded half the receptions total of the prior year for only 443 yards and one touchdown while catching balls from Michael Penix Jr. instead of Kirk Cousins for most of the year.
After the disappointing campaign, the Falcons opted to release Mooney in a cost-cutting move that would open up $7.42MM of cap space. In New York, Mooney will likely compete with Slayton and Austin for WR2 honors behind Nabers. All three players had similar outputs last year, but Mooney has shown a higher ceiling in his career and could be the favorite to see more snaps on the field. It will be interesting to see just how much of that $10MM maximum value is incentive-based, considering Mooney’s boom-or-bust history. Regardless, it may be hard to base success on statistics this year as, with so many weapons, the number of mouths to feed may limit individual production.
Damn. I was hoping he might go to the Eagles as a 3 ….
Eagles could draft a day 2 guy easily. Decent wideout talent this year
Welp, I’d almost prefer them to go after OL talent they like. They’ll still need a vet 3rd WR…. IMHO….
Who’s going to throw the ball to him? The guy who had 5 concussion assessments last year?
Yeah, gonna go out on a limb and say that the guy who they just traded into the first round to acquire, who then went on to be productive in his first year as an almost full time starter, is their plan at QB.
Oh for sure. Unfortunately, the only player on that team who lost more brain cells last season is Skateboooo.
can anyone stay healthy on this team?
Wish him the best
Thoughts on him? Anything left in the tank? I didn’t watch him much this year.
I think better than Slayton who drops more than he catches. But Mooney should be decent. He didn’t have much to work with this year with their QB troubles. Like you though I would have also preferred them to put that money towards the Oline. But they will, as it seems they are being patient.
He battled a nagging injury throughout the fall and got healthy around same time Penix got hurt. It was all unfortunate. His first year with us he almost hit 1,000 yards and that was with Bijan London and Pitts heavily involved in offense. He’ll be a solid slot piece imo
Thanks for the info! Hopefully he can stay healthy.
Agreed he’s still young
Like Sentinel said he was hurt. Dislocated his shoulder in practice if I remember correctly and was never right. He’s a burner and athletic for sure….However there was rumors of him quitting on the team, but that was also part of the Falcons dumpster fire losing streak too.
Thanks for the context. Hoping he’s healthy and can contribute. Giants need some help at WR.
Wow the Giants are making some smart moves.
Calvin Austin imo could really especially thrive with New York. He’s the perfect replacement for Wandale Robinson.
Some would argue that the organization’s last “smart move” occurred 25 years ago when the logo was changed from “Giants” to “NY” 🙂
Lol I mean they did win two Superbowls in 2007-08 and 2011-12 thanks to Tom Coughlin.
I feel like hiring Harbaugh was their first smart move in a long time but they’ve also drafted fairly well and made some solid moves in the recent past. Dart, Skattebo, Wandale, Tyler Tracy as late as they got him, trading for Burns, and some other much smaller moves come to mind. I’m not giving them credit for Naybors because that was a no brainer move.
It’s just there’s been too many big misses (the corner they drafted in the first for one) and boneheaded moves that their smart ones haven’t properly paid off. They’ve finally got their first franchise QB since Eli though, and they’ve finally got the right coach it would seem.
Harbaugh was hired because of a recommendation from King Donald. Mooney is the Giants’ latest attempt to cover up Steve Tisch’s self-dealing with his ownership shares.
And as long as you bring up the past, Coughlin’s 2 trophies are outweighed by a lot of derp, such is why he’s not in Canton and Eli may struggle to be enshrined too.
Yeah I know it’s an unpopular stance but I don’t have as much faith in Cam as the rest of the world ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
King Henry is as tough as there’s ever been to bring down but even he tries to avoid collisions when possible.
Not Cam “I’ll Run Through You” Skataboo