Malik Nabers spent seven entertaining minutes on Wednesday promising to channel his frustration better this week than he did in last Sunday’s Week 1 loss at Washington.
Then he walked off the podium when faced with a final question: is it frustrating that the Giants have lost their last eight to the Cowboys, and how much does he want to change that?
“I’m not answering that one,” Nabers, 22, said, turning and walking away with a smile.
That was a surprising way to finish a press conference in which Nabers stayed on message about needing to vent his feelings differently than he did on national television against the Commanders.
Then again, what is there for the Giants to say?
Dallas has beaten them in eight straight going back to 2020, when Joe Judge beat the Cowboys in New Jersey, and in 15 of their last 16 dating back to 2016, when Ben McAdoo got a road win.
And Nabers’ Giants offense didn’t even score a touchdown against the Commanders. They became the first team in 83 years to have six or fewer points in season openers in three straight seasons, according to ESPN Research.
That was enough to make Nabers shut the film off as he watched it back.
“I looked at it a little bit, got frustrated again, turned it off,” Nabers said. “Sick to my stomach.
“Not even saying the whole team, my game play, start with mine first,” he said. “I believe I’m a key part of this offense. So when I don’t play right, the energy’s not right. But like I said, I got sick to my stomach and turned it off.”
The second-year receiver clearly received a talking to from head coach Brian Daboll after how Sunday spiraled out of control.
Nabers and Daboll alarmingly got into it on the sideline in the first quarter of the Giants’ first game of the entire season.
They could be seen jawing at each other, and the FOX camera captured Nabers not returning a Daboll high five attempt after their spat.
Nabers also sat on the bench with a towel over his head late in the fourth quarter.
Nabers mocked himself, insisting that “I got a natural b–ch face,” so he always looks disgruntled even when he’s even keeled.
He also said his frustration was misunderstood by the public. He wasn’t bothered by not getting the ball, since he did see 12 targets. He was annoyed he only had five catches on those targets. And he wanted the offense to generate more as a group.
“I was trying to get the offense going, trying to get people to let’s get rolling, the lights was on, the game was on, it’s time to play,” he said.
But clearly Daboll wanted him to clear things up for the cameras on Wednesday to try to smooth over the narrative that the Giants’ house is on fire. So Nabers did his duty.
“I had a talk with [Daboll] after the game, just sideline demeanor, myself included,” he said. “And I can see how it got blown out of proportion. But I had my thinking face on, that was my thinking cap. I wasn’t really focused on where I was, but I was trying to think of what can we get to, how can we get some more plays to be made on this team, how can we score points.”
He said he knows what to change about how he played: “more aggressive when the ball is in the air.”
He said his “technique” was “lackadaisical sometimes when the ball was in the air” because he “tried to do some other things to manipulate the [defensive back] while the ball was in the air.” He wouldn’t disclose how much of an issue his back injury is.
And he knows he has to “take a different route” when he tries to fire the offense up, to be more subtle and encouraging “rather than speaking abrupt, loud and being aggressive.”
Nabers could only stay Zen for so long on Wednesday, though. The sheer mentioning of the Giants’ futility against the Cowboys was not something he wanted to hear.
This is going to take a fight through adversity for the Giants to come out on the other side, though. And on Sunday, Nabers is going to have to keep his head to get them there.
