Malik Nabers taking it all in at Giants rookie camp
Giants receiver Malik Nabers at rookie minicamp on Friday. Credit: Ed Murray
Malik Nabers wanted to do it all on Friday, his first day at Giants rookie camp.
The No. 6 overall pick in April’s draft soon realized that was not going to be the case.
Giants coach Brian Daboll preferred that the rookie class ease its way in, especially when it comes to workouts in May.
“It’s hard,” Nabers said after the on-field work was done for the day. “Coach Groh [Mike, the wide receivers coach] told me I wasn’t going to be participating in everything and I [asked] him why. That competitiveness in me is always going to show.”
The Giants love that about Nabers. They also know that all rookies have to acclimate to their new surroundings.
“It’s surreal,” Nabers said. “I got to keep telling myself continue to work hard. All your dreams came true, but it’s time to move on from all that. All that is over. Now it’s just being a pro.”
In his final year at LSU, Nabers was dominant. He had 89 catches for 1,569 yards — an average of 17.6 yards per reception — and 14 touchdowns.
Nabers made a nice play in the Giants’ field house on Friday, contorting his body to haul in a catch.
Since being drafted, Nabers said he has talked to Odell Beckham Jr., another former LSU receiver/first-round pick of the Giants.
Beckham’s advice?
“Just continue to be who I am,” Nabers said. “Who I am, it got me here today, so he just kept telling me to still work hard. Stay with that chip on your shoulder.”
Nabers described himself as funny and a “good person to be around.”
He added that football “saved my life. I take it serious. I’m happy to be here. I’m finally here, so just to get out there running with the guys, it’s a dream come true.”
Football saved his life?
Nabers said it was “the only thing that I felt I could do with my life. Only thing I felt like, when I looked at what I wanted to do in the future, it was the only thing that I had plans to do. Saved me and my family’s life. Put my mom in a house that she wanted. Changed my life forever, so I’m happy to be here.”
Nabers said he recently purchased the house for his mother, and did so proudly.
“It was very important,” he said. “That was the most important thing in my life, I would say, is having her have her own house and feel comfortable and not having to worry about bills to pay. And know that her little boy did it for her.”
During Friday’s drills, Nabers wore a No. 9 jersey. He indicated that he has not decided what jersey number he ultimately will choose.
Of Nabers, Daboll said: “He’s a good young man. I like to think we have fun in the meeting rooms. But we’ve got a job to do, and he has to pick up our system as quick as we can. We’re going to do everything we can to help him.”
Snee back as scout
The Giants announced on Friday that Chris Snee, a two-time Super Bowl winner, four-time Pro Bowl offensive lineman and a member of the franchise’s Ring of Honor, has joined the team as a senior scout in the personnel department.
He will be involved in college and pro scouting. Snee, who is Tom Coughlin’s son-in-law, was the Giants’ second-round draft pick in 2004. He retired in 2014.
Kimberly Jones covers the Giants for Newsday, a beat she first worked in the early 2000s before joining the YES Network to cover the Yankees. She worked for the NFL Network for more than a decade and has been heard semi-regularly on WFAN.
