Giants' Malik Nabers on fast track with Olympian Rai Benjamin
Olympic gold medalist and Giants fan Rai Benjamin (right) is ready to see another speedster, Malik Nabers, in action. Credit: Noah K. Murray; Newsday/Tom Rock
One of the fastest people in the world was at Giants practice on Wednesday to watch his favorite team, but also to catch an early glimpse of someone in the running to become his next favorite player.
Now Rai Benjamin, the three-time Olympic gold medalist hurdler from Mount Vernon, can’t wait to see Malik Nabers in real action.
It took Benjamin 46.46 seconds to win the 400-meter hurdles in Paris this summer. It feels as if took Nabers even less time to become his team’s go-to talent. From the time he was drafted through his training camp and preseason it’s been a head-down sprint toward stardom.
And he hasn’t even done anything yet!
“I’m really, really excited,” Benjamin said about the rookie receiver set to make his NFL regular season debut Sunday against the Vikings. “A really talented guy. Really dynamic guy. I feel like the game today has become more athletic than anything and he is just electric. I hope we can get him the ball a lot on Sunday.”
It’s been a while since anyone on the Giants has had the kind of Week 1 expectations Nabers is facing. Maybe Saquon Barkley in 2018 when he was the second overall pick? But that team already had Super Bowl champ Eli Manning as its epicenter. Certainly few receivers have experienced this kind of hoopla. Odell Beckham Jr.? His aura built throughout 2014 and he had to wait almost a month before he joined the team on the field as a rookie due to a hamstring injury. Even the last two big-name quarterbacks, Manning and Daniel Jones, have not started in their rookie openers.
Nabers, unlike those others, will be carrying the entire weight of the franchise and the fanbase when he first steps onto the turf at MetLife Stadium.
The sixth overall pick in the draft begins his career as the centerpiece of the Giants’ best hope for offensive success, a deep passing attack, and everyone from ownership to Olympian has their fingers crossed that he can live up to all that has been foisted upon him. He's already gotten the Giants to bring a jersey number out of retirement 90 years after they put it in mothballs. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think they might one day be re-retiring it for him.
Nabers’ response to that kind of absurd pressure? A cool, confident smile.
“I feel like I was made to be here,” he said on Wednesday. “I feel like I’m supposed to be here.”
He’s acting like it, too. Asked what he thinks the fan reaction to him will be on Sunday he said he is looking forward to being serenaded with a low rumbling chant of “Leeeek!” for his first downs and touchdowns. He said he has several celebration dances cued up for when he does score. “But I still gotta get in the box,” he quickly added. He felt comfortable enough to take a little swipe at the Giants’ “Century Red” uniforms they’ll wear on Sunday to celebrate their 100th season, a fit complete with suburban dad khaki pants.
“It’s gonna be hard to drip,” he said forlornly of the look.
Yeah. Tuffy Leemans used to say the same thing.
Nabers is even eschewing the standard advice from coaches and older players about slowing down and focusing on the task at hand for his first NFL game. That kind of talk is cliché. Nothing about Nabers is cliché.
“I know I’m a rookie but I really don’t feel like one,” he said. “I’m in a new system, new offense, a new league, but I’m just going to continue to be who I am. Don’t think twice about what I am doing, just go out there and play fast.”
At one point on Wednesday, Nabers had a television interview crashed by teammate Isaiah Simmons. The defensive veteran stepped in to answer a question about what would constitute a successful first NFL season for the receiver and began rattling off a long list of goals while Nabers stood by and counted them with his fingers.
Offensive rookie of the year. Over 1,000 receiving yards, which Simmons later amended to 1,500. No more than three dropped passes.
“And the TDs?” Nabers asked anxiously. “I gotta dance too.”
Simmons set the bar at 12 but said 10 was a more fair number.
“Realistic,” Nabers said with a nod.
“I say all these things because I know,” Simmons said. “I’ve seen a lot of really good receivers, played with DeAndre Hopkins (in Arizona), and I see some greatness in him. He’s got to work to get there. Those guys work hard to get the respect that they have. But Malik is definitely one of those guys who have that ‘it’ factor of being one of the guys where you say ‘he is our gameplan.’”
Then he turned back to Nabers.
“So don’t let me down, buddy.”
There are a lot more people than just Simmons expressing that sentiment.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.