After emerging as the New York Giants’ leading receiver as a rookie in 2019, former Auburn standout Darius Slayton retained that status in 2020.

On Sunday, Slayton returned to the top of the New York wide receiver corps, at least for one game, after needing to take a pay cut to stay with the Giants in 2022.

MORE NFL:

· TUA TAGOVAILOA RETURNS TO FULL PRACTICE PARTICIPATION

· PATRIOTS QB MAC JONES ‘MAKING A GOOD IMPROVEMENT’

· DALLAS DEFENSIVE END: ‘THAT’S THE LAST QUESTION I’M GOING TO HEAR ABOUT JALEN HURTS’

In the first four games of the season, Slayton played 57 offensive snaps and caught an 11-yard pass. In Game 5, Slayton played 33 snaps and caught six passes for 79 yards in New York’s 27-22 victory over the Green Bay Packers in London, which boosted the Giants’ record to 4-1.

New York coach Brian Daboll said Slayton’s performance showed “mental toughness.”

“It’s easy when everything is going great for people, everyone is saying good things about them,” Daboll said. “This kid had a good mindset — I shouldn’t say kid — young man and made the most of his opportunities when he had an opportunity to. When you make plays, you get more opportunities, and he did that.”

In his first two NFL seasons, Slayton caught 98 passes for 1,491 yards and 11 touchdowns. Although he was the only New York wide receiver with more than one touchdown reception in 2021, Slayton missed four games and dropped to 26 receptions for 339 yards and two touchdowns as his time on the field declined by 341 snaps from 2020.

The Giants tried to beef up their wide-receiver corps before the 2021 season by signing free agent Kenny Golladay to a four-year, $72 million contract and using the 20th pick in the draft on Florida’s Kadarius Toney, a former Blount High School quarterback.

This year, New York drafted Kentucky wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson in the second round.

As the Giants made their final decisions on reducing their preseason roster to the regular-season limit this year, Slayton went from a base salary of $2.54 million to $965,000, the veteran minimum.

“Just focus on your craft,” Slayton said on Wednesday about how he dealt with the change of fortune. “Focus on bettering myself, making sure that all my skills are sharp and that I knew my plays. That way I’d be ready for whenever my opportunity came. …

“I feel like you can’t always be like what you do and don’t deserve because you can’t ever get too high and can’t ever get too low, so I just kind of take opportunities as they come and take advantage of them.”

Slayton re-emerged as a receiving option for the Giants through a series of injuries.

Veteran Sterling Shepard suffered a torn ACL in the third game of the season. Robinson has missed the past four games with a knee injury, Toney has missed the past three games with a hamstring injury and Golladay missed the previous game with a knee injury.

Against Green Bay, Slayton, Richie James, David Sills V and practice-squad callup Marcus Johnson handled the wide-receiver work. The other three combined for one more reception and 16 fewer receiving yards than Slayton had on Sunday.

“I thought he had a great game on Sunday,” Giants quarterback Daniel Jones said. “I have a lot of trust and confidence in him. I’ve said it. We’ve been here since we were both rookies. I’ve played a lot of football with him and built up a lot of trust, a lot of chemistry over time. To see him go out there and have that good of a game was exciting, and I was happy for him. We’ll continue to try and get him the ball, but he was big-time on Sunday.”

All six of Slayton’s receptions produced first downs, with two coming on third-down snaps, and they were interspersed in four New York scoring drives.

Golladay and Toney, who have two receptions apiece in 2022, will not play on Sunday, when New York hosts the Baltimore Ravens. Neither player practiced this week.

RELATED: NFL WEEK 6: SCHEDULE, TV, ODDS AND ROUGHING-THE-PASSER

Robinson returned to practice on a limited basis this week and is designated as questionable to play on Sunday.

The Giants and Ravens square off at noon CDT Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

New York already has won as many games as it did during the 2021 season. The Giants haven’t won more than six games in any of the past five seasons, but they have their best mark five games into a season since 2009.

Despite what he’s gone through this season, Slayton said he still enjoys playing for the Giants.

“I know I love coming here,” Slayton said. “I love my teammates. I love playing ball, so I think having a positive work environment definitely helps. At the end of the day, the NFL’s a business. Everybody at some point in their career goes through something, but definitely having good guys around you help a lot.”

New York has experienced the turnaround in Daboll’s first season as the Giants’ coach.

“Just positive energy,” Slayton said about the changes in 2022. “Obviously, people are held accountable, people are held to a really high standard, but at the same time I think kind of a new staff and some new faces we have in the building have done a great job of pumping in good, confident energy, and it showed.”

FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.