NY Giants Confident in Receiving Corps Picking Up Slack Without Malik Nabers

When the New York Giants lost wide receiver Malik Nabers in the middle of their Week 4 win against the Los Angeles Chargers to what was later announced as a torn ACL, it felt like a major piece of their offense was suddenly ripped away. 

Depending on the game at hand, Nabers, who led the Giants last season with 1,204 receiving yards and seven touchdowns in 15 games, was sometimes the player the team had to threaten opposing defenses through the air. 

Nabers was the one player in the receiving corps who could create separation with ease and get open to make huge plays that kept the Giants offense afloat amid a poor running game and fluctuating quarterback room in 2024. That is why he owned one of the largest target shares in the NFL at 35% and 10 games of double-digit targets in that span. 

Even in a quarter of this season, the 22-year-old had already amassed 35 targets, a number more than double what most of his counterparts in the skilled positions had collected.

In the Giants’ loss to Kansas City two weeks ago, when that well was shut off, the impact of not seeing the ball in Nabers’ hands was felt throughout the whole offense. 

So with the No. 1 option now sidelined for the remainder of the season, the Giants and their coaching staff are left with the immense challenge of replacing that high level of production with the soldiers still available in their receiving room.  

The team is more than confident that they can do it, though, as they believe they have a core of talented, hardworking players who have done a good job of staying prepared, no matter where their opportunities take them. 

“(Receivers) Coach (Mike) Groh does an awesome job of getting the guys prepared,” Giants assistant head coach and offensive coordinator Mike Kafka said on Thursday when asked how the passing offense changes without Nabers. 

“It's really just a next-man-up mentality, whether it's (wide receiver) Beaux (Collins), (wide receiver) Jalin (Hyatt). Again, the roster moves as we get moving, if a guy is coming up or not.” 

“But I think those guys just step up into their roles, (wide receiver) Wan’Dale (Robinson), (wide receiver Darius Slayton) Slay, the leaders that they are, and continue to kind of carry the torch. Because I think we have some explosive guys in that room and the more the ball can get spread out to those guys, the better.”

The players Kafka mentioned will now be the critical pieces that prevent the Giants from becoming a one-dimensional offense with rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart, who made his first career regular-season start last Sunday, under center. 

Slayton, who has recorded nine catches for 135 yards on 12 targets this season, will likely jump back into the Giants’ top receiving role that he largely held in his first five seasons with the franchise, where he surpassed 46 receptions and 700 yards in four of them. 

Outside of Nabers, Robinson has been the Giants’ second biggest weapon with his reps from the slot position that have brought in 18 catches for 237 yards and his 50-yard touchdown haul in the fourth quarter of the team’s Week 2 thriller against the Dallas Cowboys. 

Some might have forgotten that tight end Theo Johnson started to find his groove last year before a foot injury capped his rookie campaign short in Week 13. Dart and Johnson have been developing a connection, including their three-yard pass that helped seal the Giants’ 21-18 victory over the Chargers last Sunday.