Malik Nabers Tries to Balance Giants' Progress and 'Hurt'

Of little consolation to Nabers is the fact that he's responsible for the Giants' two most prominent highlights of the season, catching two long balls from Wilson for his first scores of the year. The latter was the capper of a three-play, 63-yard trek at the end of regulation that gave the Giants a brief lead with 25 seconds remaining.

"Russ said Go get it. I was like, bet," Nabers recalled, offering himself some fleeting form of levity by recalling the moment, the second-longest aerial score in this infantile season at the time of its tossing. "I didn't think the game was over. I was telling everybody it wasn't over."

Alas for New York (0-2), it indeed wasn't over: Sunday was a sterling showcase for Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey, who booted equalizing and clinching field goals from 64 and 46 yards, respectively. 

Aware that the game was not lost in the Cowboys' final 25-second drive of the fourth, one could lament the excessive metropolitan penalties that shorted out Giant drives and forced New York to constantly play catch-up.

"We could take good things we learned from this game, take the bat, try to switch it up," Nabers said. 

"We had like, 200. yards of penalties. I mean, can't do that. We kind of beat ourselves with that. We had a lot of false starts on the offense. We had eight penalties to start the game. So if we don't have those eight penalties ..."

"We got explosive plays. We [were] in the red zone trying to get points. So that kind of really affected us early on in the game."

While supportive of all of his quarterbacks, including the essentially inactive Jameis Winston, Nabers implied that he was glad that the conversations around the Giants' situation under center would subside for at least a week after Wilson's breakout rendered Jaxson Dart's debut cameo an afterthought. 

It comes at a perfect time, as the Giants engage in a primetime tilt with the equally winless—but far more recently accomplished—Kansas City Chiefs next Sunday night (8:20 p.m. ET, NBC).

"I think he shows resilience," Nabers of Wilson recovering from a dire opening weekend outing against the Washington Commanders. "He knows preparation. He seemed comfortable there, from what I could see. He stayed with the same mindset, stayed putting everybody up, playing with high hopes."

"He didn't do anything different [this week]," Nabers continued. "I know I've been watching him a long time. I think he threw for what, 400 or something [today] ... I know what he's capable of. He's capable of more, and we just can lead with him. I'll follow behind him."