{"id":918013,"date":"2026-07-07T05:13:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T10:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/07\/football-debate-club-isaiah-likely-is-the-giants-surprise-breakout-bet-and-jaxson-dart-is-the-reason\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T05:13:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T10:13:32","slug":"football-debate-club-isaiah-likely-is-the-giants-surprise-breakout-bet-and-jaxson-dart-is-the-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/07\/football-debate-club-isaiah-likely-is-the-giants-surprise-breakout-bet-and-jaxson-dart-is-the-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"Football Debate Club: Isaiah Likely Is the Giants\u2019 Surprise Breakout Bet, and Jaxson Dart Is the Reason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Football <\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Isaiah Likely spent four NFL seasons doing impressive things in a tiny window, always stuck behind Mark Andrews. PFSN\u2019s Kyle Soppe believes that window is about to blow wide open in New York.<\/p>\n<h2>Football Why Isaiah Likely\u2019s Giants Move Sets Up a Breakout<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cFor me, it\u2019s a guy I\u2019ve got ranked as the No. 1 tight end in the NFC East and the top-10 guy at the position across the entire NFL,\u201d Soppe said on today\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@PFN365\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\">Football Debate Club<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s Isaiah Likely coming over from Baltimore to join the Giants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-video_id><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Is This Overlooked Tight End the Ultimate NFL Breakout Star in 2026?\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pkv-VYFxMkI?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The move became official in March, when the Giants signed Likely to a three-year deal worth $40 million and up to $47.5 million, reuniting him with John Harbaugh. In Baltimore, Likely never got the runway. His 2025 season was the worst of his career, 27 catches for 307 yards and one touchdown across 14 games, a stretch that opened with a foot fracture that cost him the first three weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Soppe does not pin that on the player. \u201cWe wanted him to get every chance he had with the Ravens. It just never happened,\u201d he said. \u201cThey wanted to commit to Mark Andrews. They signed him to an extension.\u201d Baltimore locked Andrews into a three-year deal midway through last season, a clear signal about the pecking order. In New York, there is no pecking order. Likely is the guy.<\/p>\n<p>Harbaugh\u2019s Baltimore offenses lived in two-tight-end sets, and the blueprint in New York looks the same, with Likely effectively operating as a second receiver from a bigger frame. He replaces the departed Wan\u2019Dale Robinson as the chain-mover this offense needs, just at 6-foot-4 and 245 pounds rather than 5-foot-8. That matters most because of who is throwing him the ball.<\/p>\n<h2>Football How Jaxson Dart\u2019s Game Funnels Through Isaiah Likely<\/h2>\n<p>Dart enters his second season after the Giants traded up to draft him 25th overall in 2025. His rookie year drew real praise, including a fourth-place finish in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting, but it was uneven in a way that plays directly into Likely\u2019s strengths.<\/p>\n<p><strong>BE THE GM OF YOUR FAVORITE TEAM:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.profootballnetwork.com\/mockdraft\">PFN\u2019s FREE NFL Mock Draft Simulator<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201c[Jaxson] Dart was a top 5 quarterback in throwing short of the sticks last season,\u201d Soppe said. \u201cHe was a bottom five guy when trying to extend the field, and you\u2019ve got a lot of those field stretchers on the roster now. [Nabers], Slayton, Mooney.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read it the way Soppe means it. Malik Nabers, Darius Slayton and Darnell Mooney can win down the field. Likely is the answer underneath and over the middle, the athletic, reliable target a young quarterback leans on when the deep shot is not there. If Dart\u2019s Year 2 leap is about marrying the short game he already owns to the vertical passing he has not, a movable tight end is the connective tissue.<\/p>\n<p>There is a health wrinkle worth watching. Nabers is rehabbing a torn ACL suffered in Week 4 last season, and his Week 1 availability is not guaranteed. If the Giants open without their No. 1 receiver, Likely\u2019s target share only climbs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of development that\u2019s going to take place here in this New York offense, and I think it all funnels through Isaiah,\u201d Soppe said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORE FDC: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.profootballnetwork.com\/49ers-only-win-somewhere-around-6-or-7-games-why-san-francisco-are-a-fraud-and-how-their-own-roster-proves-it\/\">\u00a0Why San Francisco Are a Fraud, and How Their Own Roster Proves It<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That is the bet. A tight end who has flashed for four years, finally handed the volume, in a scheme built by the coach who drafted him, catching passes from a quarterback whose comfort zone is exactly where tight ends eat. Soppe is not hedging on how it ends.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe chances of him breaking out in 2026,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019d call him likely.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.profootballnetwork.com\/football-debate-club-isaiah-likely-giants-jaxson-dart-is-the-reason\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a> Ryan Gosling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Isaiah Likely spent four NFL seasons doing impressive things in a tiny window, always stuck behind Mark Andrews. PFSN\u2019s Kyle Soppe believes that window is about to blow wide open in New York. Why Isaiah Likely\u2019s Giants Move Sets Up a Breakout \u201cFor me, it\u2019s a guy I\u2019ve got ranked as the No. 1 tight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":918014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3283,3790],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-918013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-debate","category-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}