We all know that Malik Nabers is great. Less than 18 months ago, the New York Giants made the former LSU wide receiver the sixth overall pick, and in Year 1, he proved to the world that the price they paid for his services may not have been steep enough.
With a 109-catch season now on his resume, Nabers is universally being labeled as a first-round fantasy football asset. That means a repeat of his borderline historic rookie campaign wouldn’t be nice to have. It has to be had.
Are savvy managers paying for his seemingly limitless ceiling or building their roster around someone else with their pick in the second half of the first round?
Malik Nabers’ Fantasy Outlook
There seems to be a ground swell to put Nabers’ name next to elites at the position who have already carved out a clear path to a gold jacket. And I get it.
In the scope of LSU receivers alone, he had more targets last season than Odell Beckham’s career high, caught more passes per game than Ja’Marr Chase in any of his first three seasons, and averaged 6.4% more PPR points per game than Justin Jefferson did during his first year.
He’s amazing. But is he transcendent?
I admire what the Giants did with him in 2024, opting to prioritize getting him the ball as opposed to falling in love with the upside. We saw the Bengals fall into the trap of trying to maximize every single Chase reception during his first season (13.6 aDOT, but a 63.3% catch rate) before structuring the offense in a more efficient year (single-digit aDOT in each of the three years since, posting a 69.2% catch rate in the process.
Here’s a look at his target bucket from last year compared to the two active greats mentioned above (the percentage is the catch rate on such targets, and the size of the box reflects the volume of looks in each specified area.
Malik Nabers, 2024
Ja’Marr Chase, 2024
Justin Jefferson, 2024
Mike Kafka is back as the offensive coordinator after another season of intrigue at the head coaching level from various sources, making a similar target tree a reasonable projection.
In an offense that remains limited on the talent front outside of Nabers, having access to the type of floor that comes with that role at this stage in his career is massive and should be appealing to fantasy owners when they are on the clock for the first time.
But is the per-game upside high enough?
Your instant reaction will likely question my sanity, and that’s fine. I just laid out the case for Nabers being on that Chase/Jefferson trajectory, and they go with the first two picks regularly. That said, I will need to see some proof of concept first.
Jefferson was the top overall pick in 2023 and cleared 1,000 yards in 10 games, but because of a lack of stability under center, he was a back-of-first-round selection. That may sound like a minor dip, but it makes a difference at this level.
Now, Jefferson specifically was able to pay off your optimism with a great 2025. Still, the point is that we were skeptical even of an all-time great who already had three seasons of good will built up and had a quarterback who, despite underwhelming production, had at least seen live NFL action.
For Nabers, he has just a single season of production and projects to see the majority of his passes from rookie Jaxson Dart this season. That, of course, doesn’t mean he can’t be a star. He can be, and there’s a path for him to finish as the WR1. I’m not blind to that, but the limited ceiling case is what gives me pause.
Deep Receiving Profile, 2024
- PPG: Chase (7.62), Jefferson (7.59), and Nabers (4.61)
- Target Share: Nabers (49.4%), Chase (38.1%), and Jefferson (36.2%)
- Production Relative To Expectation: Chase (+112.6%), Jefferson (+73.5%), and Nabers (-1.6%)
Malik Nabers finished with the fourth-most “unrealized” air yards in 2024 (876).
New Giants QB Russell Wilson was the most efficient deep ball passer in 2024, completing 27-of-50 (54%) of 20+ air yard throws for 851 yards, 8 TDs, 2 INTs
Here are some of Nabers’ unrealized yards: pic.twitter.com/2NTt3oY7Ba— Dan Schneier (@DanSchneierNFL) June 18, 2025
If I’m regressing any of the numbers above, it’s probably Nabers’ deep ball target share over the efficiency of those looks. That 49.4% rate is better than any season Davante Adams has put forth during his elite career, and while the G-Men aren’t exactly loaded with alternative options, it’s simply a high rate to sustain.
MORE: Free Fantasy Football Mock Draft Simulator
With the QB play being what it is in New York, or at least what it projects to be, any dip in usage rates is going to make returning Round 1 draft capital an uphill battle as you’re banking on volume, not the expected return on each single opportunity.
Nabers is worth the hype, and the football fan in me wants to say that he is a slightly younger version of Jefferson, where his greatness is a more potent force than his surrounding cast.
The math part of me, however, is the one that shows up on draft day, and I’m having a hard time seeing him doing enough to justify passing on an Amon-Ra St. Brown or Nico Collins type when I’m on the clock.
Cameron Sheath‘s Malik Nabers Fantasy Projection
Malik Nabers was second among all receivers in targets (170) last season, despite missing two games. That usage makes him a contender to finish WR1 overall, but the lack of receiving talent around him means he is constantly dealing with double coverage and punishing hits.
The second-year receiver won’t get many more opportunities than he did as a rookie, but he’ll need to do more with them. Those 170 targets have been topped just 45 times in the 21st century. Of those 45 times, only two players have tallied fewer receiving yards than Nabers did last year. A QB upgrade in Russell Wilson should help, after Nabers caught passes from four different quarterbacks in 2024.
The team’s horrendous schedule will likely see the team regularly play from behind this year, which is always good news for an alpha receiver’s fantasy production. New York scored the second-fewest points (273) in the NFL last season, coming away empty-handed on 72.1% of drives. A slight improvement from a young offense, with a more reliable quarterback, could potentially see Nabers lead all receivers in fantasy in 2025.
