Giants GM Joe Schoen expects Malik Nabers to be available for Week 1 despite ACL surgeries

The New York Giants are planning as if wide receiver Malik Nabers will be ready for the start of the season, even after a pair of surgeries tied to his right ACL recovery. General manager Joe Schoen said this week that he expects Nabers to be on the field for Week 1 against the Dallas Cowboys, the Sunday Night Football opener at MetLife Stadium on September 13.

Nabers’ timeline has been cautious by necessity. He originally underwent surgery in October to repair a torn ACL. After that, he had a second procedure in the offseason to address scar tissue, a step that can affect the pace of return and practice readiness. Schoen’s message to the organization has been optimistic but not absolute, emphasizing that recovery is not instant and that every patient progresses at a different rate.

Schoen indicated that Nabers is still in the learning phase of returning to full team activity. According to the report, Nabers is not practicing yet, meaning the Giants have not yet been able to test his workload in the kinds of routes, timing patterns, and live contact that games require. Even so, Schoen said Nabers is “trending in the right direction,” and the organization’s internal expectation is that he can move from rehab to game planning soon.

The Giants’ offseason approach has included adding additional receiving depth, partly to protect against uncertainty around the schedule of a return. Schoen pointed to veteran and depth options brought in over the offseason, including Darnell Mooney, Odell Beckham Jr., Calvin Austin III, JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Braxton Berrios. The point is not that these receivers are meant to replace Nabers’ impact, but that the offense can stay structurally sound while the coaching staff manages whether and how Nabers ramps up.

Offensive coordinator Matt Nagy has also discussed Nabers’ preparation in a different way, focusing on how quickly the receiver is processing the system. The report says Nagy has been impressed with Nabers’ mental approach to the offseason and his ability to execute assignments. In one described moment, Nagy ran a classroom-style quiz that had players call plays from different perspectives, and Nabers was part of that exercise, showing he understood formation, motion, shift, and the selected play.

For a Giants team, the first-week availability of a primary playmaker is more than a roster headline. It shapes how the passing game is scripted in training camp, how the quarterback reads coverage, and how much the team can lean on timing routes versus second-guessing based on limited reps. It also affects how the Giants balance practice reps between development and installation, especially early in the season opener against a major-market opponent.

The cautious caveat is straightforward: expectation is not the same as certainty. With Nabers not practicing yet, the Giants will still have to manage his ramp-up, potentially adjusting workload through preseason and into the opener. If he is cleared, the Cowboys game becomes the earliest major stress test for both his health and the timing between him and New York’s quarterback playbook.

For now, New York’s path is clear. The staff will watch whether Nabers can handle increasing practice intensity and whether the offensive timing that made him a standout receiver carries over after the surgeries. The Giants say they expect him to be ready for Week 1, and the next key checkpoint will be when he returns to full team sessions and whether those sessions translate cleanly to Sunday-night game readiness.