Giants WR Malik Nabers catches break in second season with bolstered QB corps
Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers looks on during training camp in East Rutherford, N.J., on Wednesday. Credit: Ed Murray
Playing the most dependent position in sports can be tough. Malik Nabers learned that last season. He was able to put up record-setting numbers and make a few jaw-dropping plays, but there always seemed to be something holding him back.
His quarterbacks.
That was never quite as obvious as when he took the field in the Pro Bowl Games at the conclusion of the campaign in January. Sure, it was just flag football, but in that one sun-drenched afternoon of action, it seemed as if he caught more passes in stride and saw more opportunities on contested balls where his skills allowed him to come away victorious than he did in his entire first year as a Giant. In a game of star players, he wound up being one of the main attractions with two touchdowns.
“They had a lot of great, talented quarterbacks there,” Nabers said on Wednesday of the experience of playing on an NFC squad with Jared Goff, Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield. “I was a young buck just trying to get as many open opportunities as I could, but those guys did a great job delivering the football.”
Now, Nabers is finally back on the field, a full participant in the opening workout of training camp after sitting out the entire spring to give his nagging toe injury some time to settle down. He’s ready to embark on his second NFL season.
And this time he has a quarterback — maybe even a few — he believes should be able to help him become even better.
Nabers has already forged a bond with starter Russell Wilson, who was reconfirmed as the starter going into this season on Wednesday and who has the locker next to Nabers. He is also working on building a relationship with rookie Jaxson Dart, who figures to be the one throwing to him soon and potentially for a long time afterward.
Nabers was asked if he thinks he might become the best receiver in the league.
“I can be,” he said. “I feel like I should be one of those top guys in a few years, if not next year. That's just me personally. But time will tell.”
Who feeds him the football and how well they do it will tell, too.
Nabers may still be dependent on having someone who can get him the ball in the right spot at the right time and also has the characteristics to lead not just the team but the franchise — something he noted was missing from the three-win Giants at several points last year, in particular whenever they faced his college teammate and offensive rookie of the year Jayden Daniels in Washington — but he actually had some ownership and say about who will be doing all of that this season.
While the Giants were completely revamping their quarterback room, Nabers wasn’t just a bystander checking for updates on social media. Head coach Brian Daboll kept the team’s top receiver in the loop on the decisions that brought Wilson, Dart and Jameis Winston to New York, but he also wanted to get Nabers’ input on those calls before they were finalized.
“Dabes did a great job of asking me questions about making moves, and me and him were in contact about moves to be made,” Nabers said. “He was [asking] me, ‘How do you like this decision? How do you like this decision?’ He was able to ask me questions like that because he knew I was going to give great feedback. Having that, as a head coach to come to a rookie player to decide on what decisions to be made with the team next year, I feel like it shows the confidence that he has in me, the confidence that the organization has in me. I'm hoping that we made some of the great decisions to be made.”
On Day One it was already paying off. Nabers caught at least two touchdowns from Wilson on fade passes in the red zone on Wednesday.
They’ve already become so commonplace that Wilson lost track of them and couldn’t recall if it was “two or three.”
One of those touchdowns was an acrobatic double grab in which Nabers caught the ball while leaping, cornerback Deonte Banks poked the ball away while the players were airborne, but Nabers was able to pluck it back just before he and it hit the turf.
“I just love how he works,” Wilson said of Nabers. “I think there's going to be more to him and we're going to keep developing. Obviously, we're just getting started and just kind of warming up and getting hot, but we're excited to work together.”
“I've been watching him a long time and to get great passes from him, get to see his leadership, I understand now why he's been doing it for so long,” Nabers, who grew up a Seahawks fan, said of Wilson. “I'm kind of taking that challenge up to move forward and better myself and hopefully we can do some great things this year.”
As for Dart, Nabers said he is “one of those guys, he loves to be around his receivers for sure. We go out to dinner, so we have a lot of conversations just getting to know each other. I think when it's his time, we should be clicking moving forward.”
None of this means Nabers will be a shoo-in as a dominant playmaker this year. Remember, by his own calculation, he gave himself “a few years, if not next year” to reach his pinnacle. That seems oddly conservative and uncharacteristically humble. Why not this year?
“I’ve been having little things with my toe,” Nabers told Newsday of his extended timeline, a red flag that could have more of an impact on his second season than the quarterbacks did on his first. “I’m healthy but trying to get way more healthy than normal.”
Earlier, he had not ruled out the possibility of surgery to fix that toe, which has been an issue for him since his college years.
“There’s been talk about it,” he said of having a procedure. “It just never really came to a complete thought in mind for me to do it, but I've been managing it well, been running around feeling pretty good. Everything has been going good with the rehab, so my toe is feeling better. I'm just happy to be out there with my guys now.”
With his quarterbacks. The ones he helped pick. The ones who have the qualities he asked for.
If the toe and the passers both cooperate, though, Nabers may be at or near the top of the league’s receiver hierarchy sooner than even he is predicting.
“Time will tell,” he told Newsday with a smile. “You can’t push greatness. Greatness comes at its own pace.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
