Malik Nabers Has Yet to Take a Full Practice Ahead of Giants' Week 1 Opener
A day-by-day look at Malik Nabers' practice participation since training camp opened, from his first individual reps in July through this week's session.
Malik Nabers has not played a football snap since Sept. 28, 2025, when he tore his right ACL and suffered a full tear of his lateral meniscus catching a deep pass from Jaxson Dart. With the Giants set to open the season Sept. 13 against the Dallas Cowboys, Nabers has not been a full participant in a single practice this training camp.
The day-by-day practice record below shows why neither man will commit to a Week 1 timetable.
Nabers' practice-participation timeline
Nabers avoided the physically unable to perform list when the Giants opened training camp July 28. He took the field for his first practice of the summer the next day, July 29, for the individual portion only, ESPN's Jordan Raanan reported. Head coach John Harbaugh said Nabers "looked good" and that the team would set his workload day-to-day.
A week later, Nabers still had not taken part in full team drills. Instead, the Giants' return-to-play coordinator, Allison Boudreau, had him working on off-balance landings and unpredictable movement rather than standard rehab drills, Harbaugh said, Sports Illustrated's Patricia Traina reported.
Over the Giants' 10 practices at their West Virginia training camp site, Nabers took part in individual and install periods in nine of them — never full team work, Raanan reported in an update carried by Heavy.com. Harbaugh said Aug. 13 the team was targeting group and team periods "maybe next week."
Nabers watched the Giants' joint practice with the Dolphins in a T-shirt and shorts on Aug. 20, held out of the physical work entirely. "It's not as controlled of an environment as we would have [preferred]," Harbaugh said, amNewYork's Jack Wynn reported.
Nabers took his first live 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 reps of the offseason on Aug. 24, shedding the red no-contact jersey he had worn all camp. He played three snaps in the 11-on-11 period and caught two passes, including a diving grab on a low ball, amNewYork's Jack Wynn reported. Harbaugh called it "the best we've seen him look."
Two days later, on Aug. 26, Nabers walked off the practice field with a trainer roughly 20 minutes before the session ended. Harbaugh said afterward it was not injury-related, adding there was no mention of Nabers on the team's internal injury discussion that day, Traina reported. Nabers did not play in any of the Giants' three preseason games.
By Sept. 2, Harbaugh described a Nabers practice that started with trainer work before he "was involved in most of the team reps" — still not a full session from start to finish, and still set day-to-day, Bolavip's Miguel Angel Fernandez Castro reported.
What Nabers and Harbaugh are saying
Both Nabers and Harbaugh addressed the timeline directly in postpractice comments.
"I feel real good, to be honest," Nabers said Aug. 31. "But like I said, you're going to feel good, but there's still some things that you still have to check off the box for you to participate. I'm still going through that, still listening to the trainers, still listening to doctors and sharing everything with them," he told reporters, per Sports Illustrated.
Harbaugh gave the clearest framing of the team's position on Sept. 2, comparing blanket assumptions about Nabers' status to an episode of "The Odd Couple."
"That's what happens when you assume," Harbaugh said. "We have to plan for every outcome. We have to plan that he'll be there fully. We'll have to plan that he's not there at all. We'll have to plan that he's there for some partial amount," he said, per Bolavip.
What it means for Week 1
Nabers caught 109 passes for 1,204 yards and seven touchdowns as a rookie in 2024, the Giants' single-season rookie reception record. He was on a similar pace in 2025 before the injury, with 18 catches for 271 yards and two touchdowns in four games, according to Pro Football Reference.
Aug. 24 marked the first time this offseason Nabers ran a live route against a defense with Dart throwing to him. If Nabers is limited or held out Week 1, the Giants' receiver group behind him is Darius Slayton, Darnell Mooney, Odell Beckham Jr. and third-round rookie Malachi Fields.
What's still unknown
The Giants have not issued an official practice designation — full, limited or did-not-participate — for Nabers ahead of the Cowboys game. As of today, the NFL's official injury report lists no Giants players. The team's first Week 1 report is due Wednesday, Sept. 9, four days before kickoff.