Malik Nabers is not just putting up numbers again. He is putting himself in some rare company.
In the Giants’ loss to the Saints, Nabers hauled in 12 of 15 targets for 165 yards, giving him his third straight game over 100 yards. Through his first 25 games, only one receiver in NFL history has more catches than Nabers’ 168, and that’s Odell Beckham Jr., the last Giants wideout who made MetLife Stadium feel like his own stage. Beckham sits at 176, according to Giants.com.
That kind of climb looked a lot less obvious just a few weeks ago. Nabers had only 96 yards through the first three games after coming off a torn ACL, and the questions around his production were getting louder. Since then, though, he has ripped off a stretch that has completely changed the feel of the Giants’ passing game, and it has happened with Jameis Winston, not Jaxson Dart, delivering the football.
The turnaround started against Arizona, where Nabers caught six of seven targets for 112 yards and his first touchdown of the year. He kept rolling in the 27-27 tie at Washington, finishing with 11 catches for 121 yards and a score on 20 targets. Then came the 165-yard performance against New Orleans.
The swing is impossible to miss when you lay out the numbers:
Weeks 1-3: 19 targets, 12 catches, 96 yards, 0 TD
Weeks 4-6: 42 targets, 29 catches, 398 yards, 2 TD
2026 total: 61 targets, 41 catches, 494 yards, 2 TD
Over the last three games, Nabers has averaged 14 targets and 132.7 yards per game. The Giants’ approach has changed with him too. Those 42 targets in the last three weeks more than double the 19 he saw in the first three, a sign the offense has stopped spreading the ball around just to spread it around and has started leaning into its best weapon.
It also puts Nabers in some unusual franchise company. Before this run, the Giants had only produced a three-game streak of 100-yard receiving games six times in one season: Beckham twice, Victor Cruz, Mario Manningham, Homer Jones and Del Shofner, per Giants.com. Sunday made it seven.
What makes the surge even more impressive is that it is not coming out of nowhere. Nabers already set a high bar as a rookie in 2024, catching 109 passes for 1,204 yards and seven touchdowns on 170 targets while earning a Pro Bowl nod.
Then the knee injury slowed nearly all of 2025, limiting him to 18 catches for 271 yards in four games. That slow start in September naturally raised concerns.
Six games into this season, those concerns have been pushed aside. Nabers is up to 41 catches for 494 yards, which projects to roughly 116 catches and 1,400 yards over a 17-game season. Those would be better than his rookie year, all while the Giants keep cycling through quarterbacks.
He also moved ahead of Puka Nacua on the receptions list for a player’s first 25 games, with 159 to Nacua’s total. Beckham’s 176 is now only eight catches away, and Nabers has already shown in the last two weeks that he can clear that gap in a single game.
The quarterback situation around him remains unsettled, and that only puts more focus on Nabers himself. John Harbaugh has not named a Week 7 starter, saying the staff is “honing in on a decision” between Winston and J.J.
McCarthy. Winston threw two second-half interceptions Sunday.
McCarthy, meanwhile, threw for 243 yards in the fourth quarter alone, matching the most by a Giant in a single quarter since at least 1991.
Even with that uncertainty, Nabers has made the offense revolve around him. He is producing this stretch with a backup quarterback and a running game that managed only 84 yards on 20 carries against the Saints.
That leaves very little else for defenses to worry about. No matter who gets the nod at quarterback, that 14-target average is the blueprint.
Next up is a tough individual matchup against Houston. Derek Stingley Jr. and Kamari Lassiter are both set to be part of the test, and both corners played at least 96 percent of the Texans’ defensive snaps in the London win over Jacksonville. That makes Sunday the hardest coverage challenge of this run so far.
There is also the financial side of all this, and it is only going to get more expensive. Nabers is still playing on the four-year, $29,207,750 rookie contract he signed in 2024, and his 2027 cap hit is $9,293,375. He becomes eligible for an extension after this season, with the Giants holding a fifth-year option for 2028 if needed.
A receiver tracking Beckham-level production this early in his career is not going to come cheap, and the Giants would be wise not to expect otherwise. They have their best offensive player in a 23-year-old wideout who keeps taking the next step.
Nabers is back, and he is chasing Odell.
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