Giants head coach John Harbaugh provided updates on a couple of players returning from injuries this week.
Running back Cam Skattebo and wide receiver Malik Nabers are both coming off of season-ending injuries and Skattebo was further along when the team wrapped up their offseason program. During an appearance on The Domonique Foxworth Show, Harbaugh said that remains the case and that Skattebo’s ankle should be well enough for him to be working in the first days of training camp.
The timeline for Nabers isn’t as clear, but Harbaugh said the wideout is “not far behind” his teammate.
“They’re doing well,” Harbaugh said. “They’re both rehabbing every day, working super hard. I would say they’re on schedule. People hear that, and they’re like, ‘Well, what does that mean?’ It’s like, well, ‘I don’t really know because nobody knows. They’re doing well, and they’re getting better every day. I feel like Skatt will be ready early on in camp, really quick. And then Malik will be working his way into practice as camp gets started one way or another. To what degree, we will find out. There’s a lot of optimism about both those two guys right now.”
Full recoveries for both players are central to any optimism about the Giants’ hopes for the 2026 season, so their status once camp gets underway will be the subject of much attention.
John Harbaugh coached Lamar Jackson to a pair of MVPs in Baltimore, but the duo couldn’t find a way to navigate through the playoffs to a Super Bowl before Harbaugh was dismissed after the 2025 season.
Harbaugh’s overall record meant that he only spent a short time out of work before landing as the head coach of the Giants and his chances of finding a way back to the big game will be heavily impacted by his new quarterback. Jaxson Dart showed ability as a runner and a passer in his 12 rookie starts and Harbaugh said on The Dominique Foxworth Show that he sees a chance to do “a lot of the stuff that we did in Baltimore with Lamar” in terms of attacking defenses on the ground and in the air in multiple ways.
“Jaxson’s capable of doing a lot of things,” Harbaugh said. “Like he can live in a lot of different worlds, football-wise. He can live in a power-running game, obviously, and a power-running game protects the quarterback because you can hand the ball off and get yards and make people defend that and keep them honest. Then, it opens up your play-action passing game. . . . That stuff, we’re gonna be in those worlds. But now we can also get in the gun or we can get in the pistol, and we can run RPOs, we can run quarterback-driven runs.”
Dart’s flashes as a rookie were mitigated by a concussion that kept him out of two games and concussion checks that forced him out of parts of other contests. That’s made his ability to stay on the field a question heading into his second season, but Harbaugh downplayed concerns about Dart’s style by again citing Jackson.
“You say something like that to Lamar, and he kinda just looks at you like you’ve got three heads,” Harbaugh said. “It’s like, ‘No, I’m gonna play ball, I’m gonna play ball.’ I just knew, I trusted that he was gonna protect himself because he wants to be out there and he wants to play. It’s not the type of a sport where — you can’t put yourself in bubble wrap.”
Harbaugh’s feelings will be put to the test this fall and he’ll need to be right about Dart for the Giants to fully blossom.
Back in May, the Giants navigated through a murky situation after edge rusher Abdul Carter publicly rebuked quarterback Jaxson Dart for introducing President Donald Trump at a rally.
The two teammates publicly squashed the proverbial beef soon after, making a clear effort to prevent the issue from becoming a further distraction.
In an interview with the Dominique Foxworth Show that was released on Monday, head coach John Harbaugh brought up the situation when addressing a question about team culture.
“I think that emotional intelligence that you’re talking about, it takes everybody having a mindset that we are in here to get out and play well together. And that’s going to be really important for all of our success. And now, let’s make some really wise decisions on how we want to go about doing that,” Harbaugh said. “It may be like the thing we went through with Jaxson and Abdul, the conversations we had around that — that’s one little piece of that journey in deciding how we’re going to operate together. And I think a coach is responsible for being aware of all of those things every single day that are happening in real time that are going to bring us together so that we can operate together when the battle hits the fan.”
Harbaugh saw the issue between Carter and Dart as an opportunity, which makes sense given that it popped up during the low-stakes time of the offseason program.
“One-hundred percent, yes, truly an opportunity,” Harbaugh said. “Those are welcome things because those are going to happen. Those types of things — I told the guys, this is not a one-off. This is not the first time we’re going to be thrown into this very thing, the political, social discourse. So we have to have conversations in a reasonable — in a way that respects one another. So, how are we going to go about this? What do you guys think?
“And, really, honestly, Dominique, I didn’t have to do anything. I didn’t have to say anything, really. The players said it. They laid the ground rules down for the guys and decided how it would be approached going forward. So now, when these waves keep coming in from the ocean and crash against our shore, I think we’ll be better prepared for them going forward because we’ll be expecting them. And we’ll be talking about how we’re going to deal with them.”
Giants rookies are set to report to training camp on July 23 with veterans reporting on July 28.
The Giants added a player to their defensive line on Tuesday.
The NFL’s daily transaction report shows that they have claimed C.J. Ravenell off of waivers. The Titans waived Ravenell off of their injured reserve list on Monday.
Ravenell was placed on that list in June. He played in 14 games for Tennessee last season and was credited with six tackles and a forced fumble in those appearances.
The Giants waived defensive back Rico Payton to make room for Ravenell on the 90-man roster. The move came with an injury designation.
Payton had 12 tackles in nine games for the Giants last season and he also played in 16 games for the Saints in 2024.
The NFL is making a significant change to the offseason calendar for the 2027 season.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the free agent negotiating window will open on March 9 next year. That is the same date that the two-day window opened this year, but the change comes in how close it will be to the end of the Scouting Combine.
NFL teams will wrap up their examinations and interrogations of incoming prospects on March 8 in 2027, which moves the league away from having a week or so between the two events as they have in past years.
Under that setup, the Combine has always been rife with table-setting for free agency as agents and team executives are all in the same place with their minds on the same things. With that gap eliminated, there will likely be even more of that work being done in Indianapolis so that teams are ready to make moves right from the starting gun.
