Giants' Malik Nabers seeks bigger role than one sideline scene
Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers on the field preparing to face the Washington Commanders on Sept. 7 in Landover, Md. Credit: AP/Stephanie Scarbrough
Malik Nabers’ short NFL career hasn’t resulted in much of an impetus to grin or joke around. This is his second season and he’s only come off the field in victory twice so far while his Giants have won just three games since he arrived here (one of those last year was while he was sidelined with a concussion). Yeah, you’d be grumpy too.
If you are a Giants fan, in fact, you probably are.
But the latest loss of Nabers’ career, the one in Washington on Sunday, also came with a sideline flareup in which the cameras caught him barking at and with head coach Brian Daboll. That this occurred in the first quarter of the first game of the season is probably not a good sign, but Nabers said afterward that he was simply trying to get a surprisingly lackluster team excited for the game, bring a little juice to the party.
Things have since settled down and no one is suggesting that the demonstration is indicative of a rift. If anything, Nabers and Daboll have very similar, competitive personalities, and their back-and-forth likely strengthened their already tight bond in a strange way. They understand each other and speak the same language . . . even if that language is sometimes spoken in screams.
But clearly they need to find a way to avoid such scenes. And the best way to do that, of course, is to play well and win.
That’s what has been on Nabers’ mind since Sunday.
It’s why on Wednesday before practice he gathered the offensive linemen and gave them a pep talk.
“Just said, ‘Let's go, it's time now. That game is behind us. We have to focus on the game this week,’” he said. “’I continue to need y'all. I'm going to need y'all the whole season, we have a long season.’ Stuff like that. So just giving those guys motivation, so that when we are out there, let's go.”
Nabers still isn’t happy with the way things went down on the field Sunday. He said he couldn’t even watch film of the contest straight through.
“I would look at it a little bit, get frustrated again, turn it off, sick to my stomach,” he said.
It was his own performance that bothered him the most, his five catches on 12 targets.
“I felt like I left some plays out there, I felt like there were plays to be made that I didn't make, that I'm more capable of making,” he said. “I think it's just overall just technique. I got lackadaisical sometimes when the ball was in the air, tried to do some other things that I thought could manipulate the DB . . . I just need to be more aggressive when the ball is in the air.”
The rest of the world, though, won’t remember the game as the one where Nabers could have tried different tactics. They’ll recall it as the one where he blew a fuse on the sideline . . . even if he still insists he did not.
That’s the biggest lesson learned by the young star who is evolving into a leader on this team.
“I can see how it got blown out of proportion,” he said. “I wasn't really focused on where I was, but I was trying to think about: Who can we get (the ball) to? How can we get some more plays to be made on this team? How can we score points? So, it was my face of just trying to think, and I felt like the camera was just on me all the time. I have to be more conscious of that.”
Nabers did joke that he always looks cranky, and that Sunday’s countenance was nothing out of the ordinary.
“That's just my face, I don't know,” he said. “When you all talk to me, I look the same way every time. I don't know, it's just how I am.”
He said the scowl while yelling on the sideline was actually his “thinking face” as he was brainstorming ideas on how to get the Giants offense out of its disappointing doldrum.
“I guess I have to smile more,” he said.
What he really needs is a reason to do so.
“I would say I'm still taking the time to figure out just how I want to address that,” he added. “I know I have to take a different route now. How I did it the last time, it wasn't the right way. It's kind of going everywhere right now. But I'm trying to find a different way to try to get guys going, whether it's just going over there, tapping them on the shoulder, just giving them a key point, like ‘I need you, I need you on this play, I need you right here right now’ rather than speaking abrupt and loud and being aggressive. Just trying to take some different routes.”
That’s what the great receivers do. Great leaders, too.
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.
