New York Giants receiver Darius Slayton, the longest-tenured receiver on the team and one of the underrated leaders, is a big fan of rookie Malik Nabers’s game, swagger, and personality.
Having gotten to know Nabers, Slayton said he wasn’t bothered that the rookie, who added two more drops to his season total of seven, told reporters that he didn’t care about dropped balls so long as he kept getting the ball.
“I think it comes from the right place. I think it’s kind of the mentality you have to have, to some degree,” Slayton said Monday.
“If you do drop one, you can’t sit there and let one drop turn into five because you’re so worried about dropping one. You got to get back up there and go attack the ball with the same amount of aggression the second time around. So, I think it comes from the right place.”
It’s easy to see why Nabers’s words, who has brought with him a bit of a brash style to the Giants, which head coach Brian Daboll appreciates about the young playmaker, could be taken the wrong way.
But this is a rookie who hates to lose more than anything, as was revealed during an episode of Hard Knocks, and although drops are going to happen, he’s not about to let that define who he is as a player.
On the one hand, that’s a good thing. Although NFL receivers are paid to catch the ball, even the best of them will drop a ball here and there, an occurrence they just need to put out of their mind and go after the next ball with aggression.
But on the flip side, dismissing or denying a flaw in one’s game can be the difference between a player becoming an All-Pro versus an All-Joe.
Nabers has the talent to be the former. Per NextGen Stats, his 67 receptions before the Giants’ Week 13 game against the Dallas Cowboys were the most through a player’s first nine career games through 1970. That put the former LSU star on pace for 112 receptions, which would set the NFL rookie record.
Nabers added eight more receptions against Dallas for 69 yards, bringing his season total to 75. But after missing two games earlier in the season with a concussion, Nabers hasn’t caught a touchdown pass since, and he has five of his seven dropped balls in that same span.
Like the rest of his teammates, the losing has been eating at Nabers, who, perhaps in trying to help stop the Giants’ skid, which is now seven straight games, could be pressing a little too hard to make plays that would ordinarily come naturally to him.
“Coming from the SEC, I understand,” Slayton said. “For him, you come from a big-time conference, a big-time program like LSU, and you’re used to winning, you’re used to going out there every Saturday, and he was going up and down the field and having his way out there.
“That’s definitely not how this year has went for our team. Obviously, we haven’t won a lot, but it was very similar for me my rookie year. I came from a very competitive program, and we won four games my rookie year. … It’s something that he’ll, as he goes through it, he’ll learn how to navigate it.”
Slayton has no doubt about Nabers having the right mindset.
“He obviously knows he has to make some of these plays,” Slayton said. “But, at the end of the day, Malik has good hands. He’s obviously a first-round receiver and a top receiver in college because he can catch the ball. So, I think he has a ton of confidence.”
