In difficult season, Giants' Kenny Golladay showed heart with crunching block
Giants wide receiver Kenny Golladay in action against the Eagles during an NFL game on Jan. 8 in Philadelphia. Credit: AP/Rich Schultz
Kenny Golladay always dreamed of making it to the playoffs. Through all those losing seasons in Detroit, through last season with the Giants, it was the opportunity that eluded him but also drove him.
He envisioned himself soaring above defensive backs to make acrobatic contested catches and outrunning them down the sideline for game-winning touchdowns.
He foresaw being the centerpiece of a passing offense that could sprint up and down the field with him leading the way.
He did not see it playing out like this, being an afterthought in the game plans, a stowaway on the postseason bandwagon. For most of this season he has been enjoying the team’s winning, sure, but he has been left to scrounge for snaps, trying to muddle through the most confounding and disappointing personal season of his life.
“It’s tough, I won’t lie, it’s tough,” he said on Wednesday of his role on the team, one whose insignificance is only magnified by the enormity of his paychecks.
But when he did have a chance to make his first postseason appearance Sunday, when he was called onto the field in the fourth quarter for a handful of plays, he wasn’t about to let the chance go by without putting his stamp on the game.
Or, more specifically, on Vikings cornerback Duke Shelley.
Of all the memorable plays in the Giants' 31-24 victory — a list that included a behind-the-back Statue of Liberty handoff, two touchdown runs by Saquon Barkley, an all-time great statistical performance from Daniel Jones, and a pair of fourth-quarter defensive stops to seal the win — it was Golladay’s explosive block that has caught the most attention.
In the fourth quarter on the drive that eventually resulted in the go-ahead touchdown, Jones threw a swing pass out to Barkley on the right side and Golladay trucked Shelley, sending him flying to the turf.
It’s gone viral on social media, earned him accolades (plus an Angry Runs scepter) from “Good Morning Football,” and, in some eyes, at least partially redeemed his unproductive tenure with the team.
Even the Giants themselves were stoked by it. Coach Brian Daboll, who rarely has anything exciting to say about anyone in his postgame news conferences, gave it an unsolicited shoutout.
“That was hype,” guard Nick Gates said on Wednesday. “That was a [great] block. You don’t see many wide receivers do that. I saw it was like ‘Oh my God!’ Everybody on the sideline erupted.”
(Gates, who blocks for a living, graded Golladay well on his technique: “Oh yeah. Got him perfect. Ran his feet, shot his hands. Finished him, too.”)
Added fellow receiver Darius Slayton: “Everybody loved it. The whole sideline and team was energized by it.”
Even Golladay himself was impressed. He said he wasn’t surprised, that nothing he does on the field is a shock to him, but admitted that seeing Shelley’s mouthpiece fly out from the contact he delivered was satisfying.
“That was bad,” he smiled.
Why, though? Why, in a game with so much action and drama and back-and-forth scoring, did that one play stand out?
Because it’s not what we have come to expect from pro athletes. We figure when they are benched and demoted that they’ll turn grumpy and stop caring. We anticipate disgruntled, anti-team behavior and lackadaisical effort. We assume they are playing for the money and not because they want to win or represent themselves in a winning manner.
Golladay, 29, wasn’t about to let himself become that cliche.
“I take a lot of pride in what I do,” he said. “I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror to be checked out. I got a lot of football left. The last name on my back, I take a lot of pride in that. That’s what it boils down to.”
The Giants appreciate how hard that can be.
“People don’t realize it’s not easy to be in a position he’s in now,” Slayton said. “To go out and do something like that when he gets an opportunity? It’s tremendous. Especially blocking. Even if you are getting the ball you don’t want to block. For him to go out and give that kind of effort just shows the type of person he is.”
Golladay graciously accepted the hosannas for his block, even if they only arrived because of his limited role on the team, a reminder he isn’t doing what he was brought here to do when he signed a four-year, $72 million contract, so he has to find other ways to contribute.
“It’s a little different,” he said. “When you normally are used to going out there and making a whole bunch of plays and normally [people are] praising up catches you make, me being in the position that I am in, any good thing I do will be kind of highlighted a little bit.”
There hasn’t been much to applaud Golladay for during his two seasons with the Giants.
This is one of them.
For the act of the block, sure. But more for remaining locked in until he was needed and having a willingness to perform that peripheral task as well as he could.
Golladay was asked if the block or the touchdown he scored in Week 18 against the Eagles — his first as a Giant in what was likely his last regular-season game for the team — earned him a chance to play more snaps in Saturday’s NFC Divisional Round game in Philadelphia.
After what he’s been though this season, he knew how to answer that one.
“It’s really not up to me,” he said.
The part that is, though, he’ll be up for.
“I definitely take pride in what I do,” he said. “It all goes back to me putting my best foot forward for my teammates… However many plays I get come Saturday I’ll just try to leave my mark on the game someway, somehow.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
