General Manager Joe Schoen said this week that the Giants expect Malik Nabers to play in the season opener on Sept. 13. Coach John Harbaugh sounded less definitive, saying he is “hopeful” the wide receiver will be back “soon.”
Nabers didn’t participate in the Giants’ mandatory minicamp as he continues his rehab from a torn ACL that required a second surgery to remove scar tissue.
“He said his plan is to be here most of the time, almost all the time he’ll be here, I believe,” coach John Harbaugh said Wednesday, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN. “I don’t think he will be here all the time. He’s going to be here a lot, working really hard. He’s making really good progress right now. I’m very hopeful that he’ll be back soon.
“Also, understand when you come back from a knee, he’ll be back, and he’ll still be building his way back to his ultimate full-strength self. But he’s doing great. He’s doing a great job. He’s made some real good progress in the last few weeks.”
Nabers tore the ACL in his right knee in Week 4 against the Chargers and underwent surgery Oct. 28. The second surgery this offseason was a cleanup surgery after Nabers was experiencing stiffness.
Harbaugh has said that Nabers’ knee injury was “not simple.”
It seems likely that Nabers will start camp on active/physically unable to perform as his rehab continues.
“It’s a slog; it’s a grind. He’s still in the middle of it,” Harbaugh said Wednesday. “He’s probably not in the middle of it now. He’s probably maybe 70 percent through. I don’t know, something like that, 80 percent through.
“He’s still grinding. It’s going to be a grind when he starts playing again, too, to get back right.”
Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers had surgery in October to repair his torn ACL, then had a second surgery this offseason to remove scar tissue. But the Giants still believe Nabers will be good to go for the season opener.
Giants General Manager Joe Schoen said this week that Nabers should be on the field on September 13, when the Giants host the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football.
“I still think he’ll be fine Week 1,” Schoen told Yahoo Sports on Monday. “So we’ll see. He’s trending in the right direction. Again, these things take time, so it’s not instant. Every patient is different.”
Nabers isn’t practicing yet, but new Giants offensive coordinator Matt Nagy said he’s been impressed with Nabers’ mental approach to the offseason, learning Nagy’s system quickly.
“I see why he’s as good as he is,” Nagy said.
Schoen noted that the Giants brought in some insurance this offseason in the form of wide receivers Darnell Mooney, Odell Beckham Jr., Calvin Austin III, JuJu Smith-Schuster and Braxton Berrios. But the Giants are optimistic that the No. 1 receiver in Week 1 will be Nabers.
Cam Skattebo moved well in individual drills on Monday as he continues working his way back from a gruesome ankle injury. He took another step on Tuesday.
On the first 11-on-11 of the offseason practice, Skattebo took a handoff. It marked the first time he has participated in team drills since a dislocated right ankle, a fractured fibula and a ruptured deltoid ligament in an Oct. 26 game against the Giants.
Skattebo expects to be full go for the start of training camp in late July.
He rushed for 410 yards and five touchdowns on 101 carries in the eight games he played last season before his injury. He also had 24 catches for 207 yards and two touchdowns.
Good football coaches are also good politicians. They know, as evidenced by the photo attached to this post, the importance of supporting other local teams during a postseason run. They also know what to say, and what not to say, when it comes to sensitive subjects.
On Monday, a question was posed to Giants coach John Harbaugh about the recent placement of grass at MetLife Stadium for the World Cup — to be removed and replaced with artificial turf that the players don’t like.
“Oh, you’re going to try to draw me in to the turf versus grass,” Harbaugh said. “And Roger [Goodell] is gonna call me up and he’s gonna get mad at me because I’m probably not gonna say what he wants me to say, so. That’s all I’m gonna say. That’s all I’m gonna say. It’s a good surface out there. It’s a good artificial surface, I’ll say that. How’s that?”
Harbaugh didn’t need to say what he wanted to say. Beyond the fact that what he would have said is obvious, Harbaugh has previously spoken about his preference for football on grass.
In 2015, when the Ravens switched from turf to grass, Harbaugh made his feelings about the move clear.
“It kind of epitomizes what Baltimore is all about, the history of football in Baltimore,” Harbaugh said. “To me, a Baltimore football team should be playing on a grass field in Baltimore.”
The sentiment is true, regardless of the city. After all, it was the Baltimore Colts against Harbaugh’s New York Giants on grass in the 1958 NFL Championship, known as the Greatest Game Ever Played.
Beyond tradition, the players strongly prefer it. As Devin McCourty said on PFT Live, coaches do, too. It’s the owners who want to have a cheaper surface that makes it easier to host events other than football games when the football team isn’t using the stadium for football.
The fact that Harbaugh anticipated a phone call from the Commissioner perfectly captures the current state of the debate. It has become not a question of what’s right for the players. It’s a collective bargaining issue. The NFL will hold the rope on turf, if only to get the best possible concession from the NFL Players Association if/when all stadiums embrace grass.
And the powers-that-be won’t want anyone from management saying anything that will weaken the ability to maximize the return the owners receive if/when they finally show proper respect for the players — and when they decide to properly protect their investment in them.
The Giants’ move to hire John Harbaugh as their head coach in January sparked hopes that the team will be able to return to being contender and that feeling has not flagged as the team nears the end of its offseason program.
This week’s mandatory minicamp will mark that end and the Giants will be weeks away from playing their first game under Harbaugh once they get back together for training camp. Good vibes about what’s to come will likely remain in place once the Giants get back together, but edge rusher Brian Burns offered a reminder about the fleeting nature of such feelings.
“Everybody is excited right now,” Burns said, via a transcript from the team. “Every other team is excited. Everybody is 0-0. They’re seeing the pieces they have, flying through OTAs. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel this is a little different, I was a little excited, and I expect highly of this team. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that. But at the end of the day, like I say, you’ve gotta prove it. It’s [not] just about being happy and optimistic. You’ve gotta get on the field and you’ve got to prove it against another team and impose your will on them.”
One need only look at recent Giants history to back up Burns’s statement. Harbaugh is the fifth permanent head coach since Tom Coughlin was dispatched and each of the others created reason to think things had turned a corner, but two winning seasons in 10 years makes it clear that reality has topped fantasy time and again for the Giants.
