New York Giants rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers made history with his performance in Week 2, becoming the youngest-ever player with 10+ receptions, 100+ receiving yards, and a touchdown.
But none of that mattered after the game, a 21-18 loss to the Washington Commanders.
Late in the fourth quarter, with the game on the line, quarterback Daniel Jones fired a fourth-down pass to Nabers along the sideline. He planted his feet and got his hands on the ball, but it ricocheted off his fingers and fell to the turf incomplete.
The drop was immediately haunting for Nabers, who was visibly upset in the locker room and expressed disappointment for letting his team down.
“I’m disappointed. I mean, no matter how good of a game you can play, that last play came down to me. I’m just, I’m hurt that I let those veterans down,” Nabers said. “I mean, they know what kind of player I am. Dex, Burns, Isaiah, I know what kind of confidence they got in me.
“So just letting those guys down. It’s just, I don’t want to never let my team down. That’s the main motto that’s in my head: Don’t let my team down. I let my team down.”
Those very same veterans got into Nabers’ ear this week, reminding him that football is a team sport and a single play isn’t why they limped home with their second straight loss.
“They were just like, ‘it’s not on me.’ That one play doesn’t determine the whole game. We had a lot of different plays to change the outcome of the game,” Nabers told reporters on Wednesday. “I had a lot of different talks with some of the veterans. I’m not going to speak on the conversations, but there was just a lot of uplifting from those veterans.
“It means a lot. It means that they’ve got my back. It only makes the bond stronger. I’m the new person coming in, so having those guys as my teammates it’s a powerful moment for them to come up to me, take time after practice and come up to me and just talk through different kinds of moments that I’ve been going through. Just showing that they’ve got my back through it all.”
Without Nabers’ dominant Week 2 performance, the Giants wouldn’t have been in a position to win anyway. Of course, that’s not how the mind of a competitor operates, and why it’s good that the rookie has such good veteran leadership to lean on.
Now it’s full-steam ahead.
“It’s just a moment I’ve got to put behind me and continue to go out there and catch extra passes after practice. I’ve been doing it anyway, but just keep on trying to get catches afterward,” Nabers said. “You’ve got to keep your head down, work a little bit harder. Stay together with the people in this locker room and stay together as a team.”
Winning cures all, so if Nabers and the Giants can right the ship and pick up an upset road victory on Sunday against the Cleveland Browns, that drop will immediately become a distant memory.
