They have already spoken. Soon enough, the Giants need their star wide receiver, Malik Nabers, and their new quarterback, Russell Wilson, to turn their words into action and exploits.?
After a sensational rookie season spent getting the ball thrown to him by Daniel Jones, Drew Lock and Tommy DeVito, perhaps Nabers will be able to reach an even higher level working with Wilson and his penchant for connecting deep down the field with his targets.
Nabers in his NFL debut season had 109 receptions for 1,204 yards and seven touchdowns, at times admittedly frustrated when the ball did not come his way, and the losses (14 of them) piled up.
Now Nabers has a new guy tasked with getting the ball to him.
“He’s an explosive athlete,” Wilson said Wednesday. “Just his ability to make plays. I love Malik, man. Just watching him, his personality on the field, his demeanor. I watched this one clip — I was watching a bunch of plays of him — and he caught this one catch against the Commanders on a shallow cross on a third down and he cut back inside, got another extra 20 yards. Got hit pretty good, he kind of laid the boom or vice versa, and he got up right away and just was celebrating, excited about the first down, and then moved on to the next play.
“The competitor, the warrior that he is, there are a lot of guys like that. That same play I noticed that Theo [Johnson] was blocking down the field and making a huge block. Those kinds of things are what championship football looks like. Obviously, look, [Nabers] catches that screen against the Colts and takes it 80 yards, 70 yards, that’s pretty special. There are only so many human beings in the world who can do that, and he is one of them.”
Wilson was exaggerating a bit — the Nabers screen against the Colts went for 59 yards — but his point about Nabers’ big-play ability is accurate.
Wilson comes to a team that finished 31st in the NFL in scoring (16.1 points a game) and 28th in passing offense. He is on the scene to help with all of that.
At 36 years old, the Giants do not expect him to be a miracle worker, but they do need far more efficiency and moxie than the decrepit quarterback play they received in 2024.
A brief conversation with Nabers has the 21-year-old “fired up,” Wilson said.
Wilson crossed paths at the Giants facility with Jalin Hyatt, the unproductive 2023 third-round pick, and said, “I just think he’s a guy that’s been untapped in terms of what he knows he’s capable of.”
Wilson sounded eager to throw to Darius Slayton “and his ability to get down the field and make plays” and gushed about Wan’Dale Robinson’s versatility.
“He’s like a running back, every time he touches the ball he’s hard to tackle, his ability to make people miss, his ability to get away from guys and his escapability,” Wilson said. “I”ve played with some guys like that before.”
This was an impressive grasp of his new personnel, but that is not surprising with Wilson. No one has ever accused him of shirking when it comes to preparation.
“I’m kind of a film rat,” he said. “I’ve watched a lot. I’ve watched pretty much every catch of each guy. I’ve watched a lot of highlights of them. Just really you get engulfed in it because it’s everything. If you really want to win, it’s gotta be your lifestyle. It’s gotta be — every morsel of your body and your being, it’s got to be about winning and what that looks like.”
