Tyke Tolbert, a 16-year NFL coaching veteran, is in his second season coaching the Giants’ wide receivers, a position he previously held with Arizona, Buffalo, Carolina, and Denver.
In 2018, Tolbert led a group of wideouts that overcame injuries and welcomed newcomers during the season to be consistently productive. Despite missing the final four games with an injury Odell Beckham, Jr. led the wide receivers with 77 catches for a team-high 1,052 yards and six touchdowns. Beckham exceeded 100 receiving yards in five games last season.
Sterling Shepard started all 16 games and finished second among the wideouts with career-high totals of 66 catches (one more than his rookie total in 2016) and 872 yards. He scored four touchdowns. Bennie Fowler and Corey Coleman both joined the team in October and combined for 21 receptions. Cody Latimer missed most of the season with a hamstring injury, but contributed with 11 catches for 190 yards and a touchdown. Russell Shepard had a pair of touchdowns among his 10 catches.
Prior to joining the Giants, Tolbert spent seven years with the Broncos, who won Super Bowl 50 in February 2016.
From 2012-16 one of Tolbert’s Denver standouts, Demaryius Thomas, had at least 90 catches and 1,000 receiving yards in every year to join Pro Football Hall of Famer Marvin Harrison (5) and Torry Holt (6) as the only players to reach those marks in at least five consecutive seasons. Thomas was selected to the Pro Bowl in each of those seasons. In 2017, Thomas was tied for 11th in the NFL with 83 receptions, for 949 yards and five touchdowns.
Tolbert was also instrumental in the continued development of Emmanuel Sanders, who signed with the Broncos in 2014 and then made his first two Pro Bowls (2014, ’16) and produced the first three 1,000-yard receiving seasons of his career.
Thomas and Sanders formed one of the best wide receiver duos in the league during the previous four seasons. In 2016, Thomas (1,083) and Sanders (1,032) each topped 1,000 receiving yards for the third consecutive year to become just the seventh pair of wide receivers in NFL history to accomplish that feat as teammates.
In 2015, Thomas (1,304 yards) and Sanders (1,135) turned in a productive year despite the
Broncos using multiple starters at quarterback. Denver’s receiving group also featured veteran Jordan Norwood (22 receptions, 207 yards) and first-year pro Bennie Fowler (16, 203) to the passing attack finish 14th in the NFL in a season that ended with Denver’s championship.
Tolbert coached the NFL’s top wide receiver tandem in 2014, when Thomas (111, 1,619, 11 touchdowns) and Sanders (101-1,404, nine touchdowns) combined for the most receptions (212) and receiving yards (3,023) by an NFL duo. Thomas’ 1,619 receiving yards set a franchise single-season record as the fifth-year player earned his third career Pro Bowl selection and joined Pro Football Hall of Famers Jerry Rice and Harrison as the only receivers in NFL history with three consecutive 1,400-yard, 10-touchdown seasons. Thomas’ 2014 campaign included a team-record seven consecutive 100-yard receiving games and a 226-yard output against Arizona in Week 5 that represented the highest single-game total in club history.
Sanders was named to his first Pro Bowl in 2014 after posting the fourth-most receiving yards
(1,404) and fifth-most catches (101) in league history by a player in his first year with a new team.
In 2013, Tolbert coached a unit that produced three players with 10-plus touchdowns (Thomas
– 14; Eric Decker – 11; Wes Welker – 10) along with two 1,000-yard performers (Thomas – 1,430; Decker – 1,288) as Denver set the NFL’s single-season scoring record with 606 points.
Thomas, whose 14 receiving scores in 2013 tied a franchise record, earned his second career
Pro Bowl honor and was named a second-team All-Pro selection by the Associated Press. Thomas and Decker became just the second pair of teammates (Cris Carter/Randy Moss, Min. – 1998-99) to post 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns each in consecutive seasons. Welker set a career high with 10 touchdowns, including at least one in an NFL-record six straight games to begin a season with a new team.
Denver’s 2012 wide receiver group helped Denver’s fifth-ranked passing offense score at least 30 points in a team-record 11 games. Third-year wideouts Decker and Thomas became the
youngest tandem in NFL history to record 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns each in a season, while veteran Brandon Stokley became one of 10 players in league annals to post 40 receptions and five touchdowns after the age of 36.
Thomas and Decker emerged as solid targets under Tolbert’s instruction in 2011, combining for
76 receptions for 1,163 yards (15.3-yard avg.) and 12 touchdowns in Denver’s run-heavy offense led by quarterback Tim Tebow.
In Buffalo, Tolbert helped wide receiver Lee Evans become one of the most productive receivers
in Bills history. Evans led all NFL rookies in 2004 with nine touchdown receptions and a 17.6-yard average per catch.
In Tolbert’s only season with the Cardinals in 2003, Anquan Boldin earned Offensive Rookie of
the Year honors and set an NFL-rookie record with 101 catches for 1,377 yards, the second most by a rookie in league history.
Tolbert’s first professional coaching experience was in the NFL’s Minority Internship Program with the Detroit Lions during training camp in 1997, and again in the Cardinals’ camp in 2001.
Tolbert began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Louisiana State in the spring of 1994 and Northeast Louisiana that fall. He coached wide receivers at Ohio in the spring of 1995, before returning that fall to Northeast Louisiana, where he tutored the team’s tight ends for three seasons.
After coaching tight ends at Auburn in 1998, Tolbert spent the next three years (1999-2001) as the wide receivers coach/recruiting coordinator at Louisiana-Lafayette. He served as the tight ends coach/recruiting coordinator at Florida in 2002, before making the jump to the NFL the following season.
A wide receiver, Tolbert was a three-year letterman at LSU. The Conroe, Texas native graduated from LSU with bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Tolbert and his wife, Linda, have two daughters, Morgan and Madison.
