Another electric performance by Malik Nabers came to a sudden halt Thursday when the Giants rookie’s head smashed into the MetLife Stadium turf.
Nabers hit the ground hard on as he attempted to haul in an incomplete pass by Daniel Jones near the sideline on 4th & 6 on the Giants’ second-to-last drive.
The 21-year-old receiver laid there briefly, then went into the medical tent before he walked back to the locker room with about three minutes remaining in the Giants’ 20-15 loss.
He was ruled out in the game’s waning seconds with a concussion. That ended a 12-catch, 115-yard performance by Nabers. The Giants don’t play again until Oct. 6.
Nabers needed only three offensive snaps to make his mark in primetime.
With the Giants facing 3rd & 4 on their opening possession, Nabers used a nasty double move to make Cowboys cornerback Andrew Booth look foolish.
The wide receiver faked a step inside, then surged upfield as Booth twisted toward the MetLife Stadium turf and used his left hand to catch his balance.
A wide-open Nabers collected a 39-yard reception from Daniel Jones — the longest catch of his red-hot rookie season. That drive ended with Greg Joseph’s 52-yard field goal, giving the Giants an early 3-0 lead.
It was merely a sign of things to come for Nabers, whom Jones peppered with 15 targets.
Nabers, whom the Giants drafted out of LSU with the No. 6 pick in April’s NFL Draft, now boasts 35 catches through his first four NFL games — trailing only the 39 recorded by the Rams’ Puka Nacua last year for the most in league history.
Thursday’s divisional showdown commanded a little extra attention after a comment made by Nabers during the offseason drew the ire of Trevon Diggs, the Cowboys’ top cornerback.
Asked which NFL cornerback he couldn’t wait to line up against, Nabers replied, “Trevon Diggs.” In a not-so-subtle retort, Diggs wrote on X, “Giants been getting belt for some years now.”
“I mean, it is what it is, but I don’t really wanna talk about it,” Nabers said this week in reference to that controversy. “I mean, it’s game time now.”
The ball-hawking Diggs doesn’t normally travel with an opponent’s top receiver, but — with fellow cornerbacks DaRon Bland and Caelen Carson out with injuries — he frequently lined up across from Nabers.
Most of Nabers’ success came on the plays he wasn’t guarded by Diggs, though he hauled in a seven-yard reception on 4th & 3 on a fourth-quarter drive that ended with Joseph’s fifth field goal of the night.
The star receiver who made the biggest play of Thursday’s game, however, was CeeDee Lamb, whom the Cowboys signed to a four-year, $136 million extension right before the season.
Lamb ran past the Giants’ top cornerback, Deonte Banks, for a 55-yard touchdown in the second quarter during a seven-catch, 98-yard performance.
Like Diggs, the second-year Banks followed Lamb around the field Thursday.
Thursday marked Nabers’ first taste of primetime. Nearly a decade earlier, another superstar receiver from LSU, Odell Beckham Jr., introduced himself to a national audience with his now-iconic one-handed touchdown catch against the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium on Sunday Night Football on Nov. 23, 2014.
That was Beckham’s seventh career game.
In a bit of foreshadowing, Michael Strahan shared during Amazon Prime Video’s pregame coverage that Giants co-owner John Mara told him during training camp that Nabers had the “best skill set and best body control” the team had seen since Beckham.
And while Nabers didn’t deliver any highlights approaching the degree of difficulty of Beckham’s instant-classic catch — unlike Sunday, when he ripped one ball away from a defender and later hauled in a twisting touchdown grab — he once again lived up to the sky-high hype.
Nabers also committed his NFL-leading fourth drop of the season, but he remains the focal point of the Giants’ offense, serving as a reliable intermediate target on a night Jones repeatedly underthrew his receivers on passes downfield.
The rookie continues to look the part of a No. 1 receiver.