More than six years after playing his final snap in the NFL, former New York Giants wide receiver Rueben Randle is tying the team’s struggles to his departure.
Randle, who was selected by the Giants in the second round of the 2012 NFL Draft, took to Twitter to clap back at the fans who still chirp him to this day.
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With a struggling oline & below avg run game. Same issues they’ve been having the last couple years…so before u speak on my game again, get ya facts straight
“It’s funny how there’s still some Giants fans, not all, that still try to bash me about my time there…but I just laugh now bc they clearly can’t be true fans,” Randle tweeted. “Bc if they were, they would’ve known that they haven’t been a top 10 offense since who left???”
Randle only spent four seasons with the Giants, but he’s right. His final season with the team was 2015, and that was the last time Big Blue ranked among the NFL’s top 10 teams offensively. They finished sixth in points per game and eighth in yards per game that year.
“With a struggling oline & below avg run game,” Randle continued. “Same issues they’ve been having the last couple years…so before u speak on my game again, get ya facts straight.”
Randle was once a very promising pass catcher for the Giants. In 2014, he was the team’s No. 2 receiver behind Odell Beckham Jr. and recorded career-high marks for receptions (71) and receiving yards (938).
Even in his final season with the team (2015), Randle was a valuable contributor. He started all 16 games that season and scored a career-high eight receiving touchdowns. After that, the 6-foot-2 LSU product left the team in free agency.
Although the Giants made the playoffs the first season after Randle’s departure, it wasn’t due to their offensive potency. The team fell all the way to 26th in points per game and 25th in yards per game.
Since then, the Giants haven’t cracked the top half of the league in total offense. They’ve ranked 31st (out of 32 teams) in both points per game and yards per game each of the past two seasons.
Whatever Happened to Rueben Randle?
Randle never caught another pass in the NFL after leaving the Giants. He signed with the Philadelphia Eagles during the 2016 offseason, but he was cut before the season. Inconsistent effort level may have been one of the contributing factors.
“I feel like I get read wrong because I do a lot of things naturally and it doesn’t seem like I’m giving much effort,” Randle said in 2016, per ESPN. “If I go out there and make a one-handed catch and make it look effortless, I get praised for it, but if I do all these other things effortlessly, it’s like I’m not giving much effort. It’s just kind of one of those things, you just have to go out there and just make some plays and see how it goes from there.”
In 2017, Randle signed a reserve/future deal with the Chicago Bears, but he never played in a game. He resurfaced in 2018 with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian football League (CFL) but only lasted a couple of weeks before he was released.
Randle’s professional football career came to an end with 188 receptions, 2,644 yards and 20 touchdowns (all with the Giants).
Will Giants WRs Come Through in 2022?
The Giants still had Odell Beckham Jr. when Randle left the team, but the wide receiver position has been a chronic disappointment the past few seasons. New York has the most expensive WR room in the entire NFL this season, despite the fact that they only produced five touchdowns last season.
Sterling Shepard is the tenured veteran at the position, but he is coming off a down season in which he produced just 366 receiving yards in seven games played. At least Shepard found the end zone once, though; high-priced free agent Kenny Golladay and first-round rookie Kadarius Toney were both kept out of the end zone last season.
This offseason, the Giants added second-round draft pick Wan’Dale Robinson to a WR unit that needs to break through under new head coach Brian Daboll.
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Ex-Giants WR Ties Team’s Struggles To His Departure