The Giants needed to get more explosive at wide receiver, so they drafted Malik Nabers, who arrives in New York as one of the top big-play prospects in recent memory.
The dynamic wideout finished his junior season at LSU with 89 catches for 1,569 yards and 14 touchdowns, while producing tons of highlight-reel plays.
According to Matt Harmon’s Reception Perception profile, Nabers had an 84th percentile success rate against man coverage and 78th percentile against press coverage, highlighting the strong potential that he’s not a slot-only receiver in the NFL.
Nabers also broke multiple tackles on 20.5 percent of his “in-space” routes, the highest of the past four draft classes.
Let’s dig a little deeper to see where the betting value lies with Nabers in 2024.
Projected yards and touchdowns
Nabers’ rookie-season totals are currently priced at 5.5 receiving touchdowns and 850.5 receiving yards on Caesars Sportsbook.
He became the 12th wide receiver since 2010 to get drafted in the top 10 after declaring early. If you take out John Ross, who was injured as a rookie and finished with zero receptions, the other 10 combined to average 63.2 catches, 950.6 yards and 6.5 touchdowns.
All but one of those 10 receivers would have cleared Nabers’ current receiving yards line and six would have cleared his TD prop.
Following Darren Waller’s retirement, there isn’t much target competition in New York beyond Darius Slayton, Jalin Hyatt and Wan’Dale Robinson.
Nabers has the opportunity to become the clear alpha in this group from the jump, and I currently have him projected to finish with 71 receptions for 1,019 yards and six touchdowns this season.
Offensive Rookie of the Year odds
With six quarterbacks coming off the board in the first round, the Offensive Rookie of the Year race will surely be heated.
Nabers (18/1) finds himself tied for fifth on DraftKings’ odds board behind Caleb Williams (+135), Jayden Daniels (+600), Marvin Harrison Jr. (+700), and J.J. McCarthy (13/1).
The OROY award hasn’t been nearly as quarterback-dominant as the MVP.
In the past 10 seasons, there have been four quarterbacks, three running backs and three wide receivers to take home the rookie hardware.
The last wide receiver to win was Garrett Wilson, a player Nabers has drawn comparisons to for his elite work in space.
Of course, Nabers also will draw many comps to Odell Beckham Jr., the last Giants player to win Offensive Rookie of the Year.
In OBJ’s 2014 rookie season, he caught 91 passes for 1,305 yards and 12 touchdowns.
A fellow LSU product, Nabers will hope to follow in Beckham’s footsteps and push for Pro Bowl honors in his rookie season, too.
Williams is the rightful favorite in this market, and if the Bears make the playoffs as I expect, he might just be a shoo-in to win.
Nevertheless, at 18/1, I see plenty of value in taking a stab at Nabers in an offense that should force-feed him targets.
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Malik Nabers rookie-season best bets
Barring injury, which is always unpredictable, Nabers is in line for a monstrous season.
Many will point to Daniel Jones as a limiting factor for his success, but Jones led the NFL with an 80.1 percent adjusted completion rate in 2022 — his last fully healthy season.
Brian Daboll should be able to put Jones and Nabers in consistent positions to succeed.
The Giants likely will be trailing in plenty of games this season with a defense that ranked 29th in success rate last year.
That should create pass-heavy positive game scripts.
Nabers has elite talent and every opportunity to capitalize on what should be a very favorable environment.
Recommendations:
Malik Nabers over 850.5 receiving yards (-112, BetRivers)
Malik Nabers to win Offensive Rookie of the Year (+1800, DraftKings)