It's been a long road back for Nabers, who tore his ACL and meniscus in Week 4 of the 2025 season against the Chargers, had surgery in late October, and then needed a second cleanup procedure in May to clear scar tissue. For a guy who was the 6th overall pick in 2024 and immediately became the best thing the Giants had going on offense, that's a brutal stretch to sit through. So when word came out of camp that he was finally getting live reps with the rest of the offense, it was a real moment.
Newsday's Art Stapleton, appearing on the Pat McAfee Show, said Nabers looked great in his first day back in team drills and that the belief inside the building is he'll be ready to go for the opener. That's notable because Nabers himself had spent camp deflecting any hard target date, at one point saying there was "no target date" for his return. Progress like this is exactly what needed to happen for the Giants to feel comfortable not placing him on injured reserve to open the season, which would've kept him out until at least Week 5.
Nabers didn't hold back on how the layoff hit him emotionally, either. In comments to Newsday, he described the mental grind of watching from the sideline in stark terms.
"My soul has been dead for so long being away from the game… My soul has come back to life," Nabers said. That's not the kind of quote you get from a guy who's easing back in cautiously — that's a guy who missed football badly and is done being patient about it. He backed it up with a second line that fits the vibe: "The dog in me is barking a little bit... He's coming. He's waking up a bit."
The stakes here go beyond one player's health. Nabers put up 89 catches, 1,569 yards and 14 touchdowns in his final LSU season before the Giants made him the highest pick they've ever used on a receiver, and he was on pace to be the focal point of that passing game before the injury wiped out the back half of his 2025. A Giants offense without him has been running on fumes at the position, and any version of Nabers being full-go for Dallas in Week 1 changes the fantasy conversation and the actual offensive gameplan in a hurry.
Nothing is guaranteed until he's actually suited up and taking hits in a real game, and coaches will still be careful about workload as camp winds down. But getting into full team drills, sounding confident, and having a beat writer this plugged in say the expectation is Week 1 readiness is about as good a signal as the Giants could've hoped for at this stage.