Daniel Bellinger\u2019s career arc with the New York Giants has been difficult to understand at times.<\/p>\n
A fourth-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, Bellinger started immediately. He caught 30 passes in 35 targets, two for touchdowns, in a promising rookie season.<\/p>\n
Since then, though, Bellinger has always played second-fiddle to someone else on the Giants\u2019 tight end depth chart.<\/p>\n
In 2023, that was veteran Darren Waller. Bellinger was mostly forgotten about that season until Waller, inevitably, was injured. He ended up with 25 receptions.<\/p>\n
Over the past two seasons, Bellinger has been usurped by 2024 fourth-round pick Theo Johnson. He caught just 14 passes in 2024 and 19 this season.<\/p>\n
The 2025 season featured the two longest receptions of his career, 44 and 29 yards. The 29-yarder came in Week 18 against the Dallas Cowboys, a play that showed off more athleticism than Bellinger is often given credit for.<\/p>\n
Bellinger has never complained about his situation with the Giants, even if it has long been clear that he was being under-utilized.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think every opportunity they gave me, I made the most of it,\u201d Bellinger said. \u201cWas it perfect? Was it clean 100 percent of the time? No.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the end of the day, I just wanted to help us win, regardless of what role that looked like. Whether that means I\u2019m playing 60 snaps a game or 30 snaps a game or five snaps a game. I just wanted to help us win.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Giants, of course, have not won nearly enough over the past three seasons. Bellinger is now a backup tight end headed to free agency who doesn\u2019t know if the Giants, who will have a new coaching staff, will want him around.<\/p>\n
Bellinger said GM Joe Schoen told him be believes the tight end is \u201cpart of the solution\u201d for the Giants, which he admitted was \u201cgood to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, he has no idea whether or not he will return to the Giants next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately I don\u2019t know,\u201d Bellinger said. \u201cIt\u2019s a business. We\u2019ll see what happens in the next few months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellinger would love a bigger role somewhere than the Giants have been willing to give him. He said he would \u201c100 percent\u201d be looking for an opportunity to be a full-time starter.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody wants to be number one in their position to succeed as much as they can. And, of course, that\u2019s what I want,\u201d Bellinger said. \u201cBut my main goal in football from Little League to now and furthermore is just help a team win. If that is a tight end one role, that\u2019s what I want. But if I can help a team in a tight end two role or in special teams, whatever it takes to help a team win, I think is my biggest goal, because that\u2019s what I want to walk away from the game and say, OK, I helped the team win games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellinger is looking ahead to free agency for the first time as his rookie contract expires is \u201cexciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never gone through it,\u201d Bellinger said. \u201cI\u2019ve talked to a bunch of guys that have gone through the free agency process and all that, so I\u2019m excited and just ready to see what happens next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Bellinger\u2019s career arc with the New York Giants has been difficult to understand at times. A fourth-round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2067],"tags":[7,519,1917,56,7558,1207,2321,2469,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-662096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-giants","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-giants","12":"tag-new-york-giants-free-agency","13":"tag-new-york-giants-news","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkgiants","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115855920108990840","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}