John Harbaugh 'very hopeful' Malik Nabers will be back soon as knee rehab picks up
Three weeks after calling the recovery 'not simple,' the Giants coach sounded noticeably more upbeat. Nabers still missed minicamp, but the tone around his knee has shifted.
The last time John Harbaugh discussed Malik Nabers' knee at length, he called the rehab 'not simple' and declined to put a date on anything. On Wednesday, the Giants coach offered something closer to optimism. 'He's making really good progress right now. I'm very hopeful that he'll be back soon,' Harbaugh said, even as Nabers sat out mandatory minicamp.
Where does Nabers' recovery actually stand?
Malik Nabers tore his ACL last season, and the surgery involved a full meniscus repair, which is why the timeline has dragged longer than a standard reconstruction. He also needed a follow-up cleanup procedure to remove scar tissue that was causing stiffness in the knee. Harbaugh was candid that the road back has not been smooth. 'It's a slog, it's a grind,' he said, estimating Nabers is 'probably maybe 70%' of the way through the process. That number is a coach's guess rather than a medical milestone, but it tracks with what the Giants have shown publicly: Nabers did not participate in minicamp this week and has yet to return to team drills. Still, 'very hopeful' is a real change in language from a coach who spent May refusing to commit to anything.
Will he be ready for Week 1 against Dallas?
That remains the question the Giants will not answer definitively. General manager Joe Schoen has said Nabers will be 'fine' for the September 13 opener against the Cowboys, and the organization continues to describe Week 1 as the working target. Harbaugh's comments suggest the staff believes it, even if the coach stopped short of a guarantee. The catch is conditioning. Even if Nabers is medically cleared before the opener, he will need weeks of actual field work to get into game shape after roughly a year away from football. A receiver who built his game on explosive separation cannot simply step off the rehab table and into a 60-snap workload. The realistic best case is a cleared Nabers ramping up through training camp with his snap count managed early.
What does this mean for the Giants' offense?
New York did not sit still while its top receiver rehabbed. The Giants added Odell Beckham Jr., JuJu Smith-Schuster and Braxton Berrios this offseason to paper over the position, a veteran patchwork that says plenty about how uncertain the front office considered Nabers' timeline. A healthy Nabers changes everything. He set rookie records with 109 catches for 1,204 yards in 2024 and was the offense's gravitational center before the injury. For a rebuilding roster that spent the second overall pick on Abdul Carter, getting its 22-year-old No. 1 receiver back at full strength matters more than any free agent signing the team made. The next checkpoint comes at training camp in late July, when the Giants will have to show whether the optimism translates into actual practice reps.
Players in this story
Sources
- ESPN: Giants' John Harbaugh 'hopeful' Malik Nabers will be back soon
New York Giants betting odds
Super Bowl futures, win totals & where to bet
21+ and present in a state where legal. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. We may earn a commission.
