​We still don’t know when New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers will return from a serious knee injury that sidelined him in Week 4 of the 2025 regular season after undergoing multiple surgeries. The expectation remains for a Week 1 return, but at this point, who knows for sure. It’s not a stretch to say Nabers is the one player on the roster the Giants cannot afford to lose for extended stretches. If he’s out for an extended period, the season could quickly slip away. If Nabers is healthy, however, the Giants would have one of the league’s few receivers capable of changing a game almost on his own, and Bleacher Report’s Alex Kay placed Nabers at the top of his list of “dark horse candidates” to win NFL Offensive Player of the Year in 2026. Nabers currently sits at +4500 odds to win across major betting sites, with Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs and Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson as early favorites, their odds in the +700 to +900 range.
“Despite Nabers’ breakout rookie season, one of the best in recent memory—104 receptions for 1,204 yards and seven touchdowns across 15 games—he still carries the 19th-best odds to win Offensive Player of the Year this season,” Kay wrote on July 8. “Nabers’ impending return would be a massive boon for a Giants squad aiming to take a major step forward in 2026. The team went all-in on a regime change and roster upgrades this offseason, notably naming John Harbaugh the head coach and adding first-round guard Francis Mauigoa to bolster Jaxson Dart’s protection.”
While the hope is Nabers returns and immediately starts connecting with Dart on explosive plays, there is little evidence at this point to suggest that will happen without delay. The four games Nabers played in 2025 before his injury were largely defined by his public complaints about the offense, including a sideline blowup in the season opener against the Commanders—a game in which he had five receptions for 71 yards on 12 targets. Nabers, acknowledging the irony, pointed out that with that many targets, there was no reason for such complaints and said he needed to work on his “sideline demeanor” going forward.
Nabers did ignite the offense against the Dallas Cowboys with 13 receptions for 167 yards and two touchdowns in a 41-37 overtime loss in Week 2, but he managed only two receptions for 13 yards on seven targets in a 22-9 defeat to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 3, not even recording his first catch until the fourth quarter. “We’re 0-3,” Nabers said after the loss to the Chiefs. “We can’t win a game. It’s frustrating. We can’t win.” His comments after that game continued to draw attention, reinforcing that his leadership and presence were as needed as his on-field production.
Nabers’ final game—and Dart’s first career start—came in Week 4, a 21-18 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers, in which Nabers caught two passes for 30 yards on three targets before suffering the knee injury in the second quarter. The lingering uncertainty around his return has since colored how the Giants are perceived, from the locker room dynamics to the team’s long-term plans for 2026 and beyond. If Nabers can come back at full strength, his impact could be transformative for a franchise trying to ascend in a crowded NFC landscape. Yet until he returns to form, questions about the offense’s ceiling—and the accuracy of those bold projections—will continue to hover over the Giants’ plans for the near future.