NFL Insider Claims Giants Aren’t Aggressively Pursuing Biggest Roster Need

The New York Giants are realistic enough to understand that there is no replacing receiver Malik Nabers, who was lost for the year with a torn ACL in Week 4 and who is reportedly set to undergo surgery in the coming week.

But for those who are holding out hope that the Giants swing a deal to land another receiver to help rookie Jaxson Dart not just this year but down the line, NFL insider Dianna Russini of The Athletic has reported that Big Blue is not “aggressively working the phones to add talent at receiver right now.”

The report makes sense on a few levels. First, if a team has a good receiver available for a trade, chances are they’re going to want more than just a late-Day 3 pick for the player.

The Giants, remember, do not have a third-round pick in 2026, having included that pick in the trade with Houston to move up in this year’s draft to acquire Dart at No. 25.

The Giants are also not projected to be awarded any comp picks in 2026, meaning that they won’t necessarily have an abundance of extra draft picks to include in a trade.

While a trade for a receiver could include future picks from 2027 or even a conditional pick, again, a premium receiver who might give the Giants some of the firepower they’ve lost due to Nabers’s absence is not going to come at a cheap price.

Then there is the other side of the equation: where the Giants currently stand record-wise. At 2-4 ahead of their Week 7 game against Denver, the Giants are not currently one receiver away from making a postseason run.

General manager Joe Schoen might in fact be waiting to see what the team does over the next three weeks before the Nov. 4 NFL trade deadline.

If the Giants, who face Denver, Philadelphia, and San Francisco over that span go 2-1, perhaps that will sway Schoen into making a move.

Then again, if they accomplish those wins without an outside addition at receiver, perhaps Schoen decides to punt on the move and instead turn to the 2026 vdraft to add additional firepower for a roster that, of late, seems to be trending upward.

The loss of New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers in the offense is huge for Big Blue. | Brad Penner-Imagn Images

The Giants offense has definitely felt the loss of Nabers in the passing game, but they’ve tried to make up for the lost offensive production elsewhere.

The Giants, who are currently averaging 5.4 yards per play without Nabers versus 4.6 with him, have seen an increase in their average rushing yards per game (85.5 without, 69.2 with). And interestingly enough, even their average passing yardage per game has increased from 76.8 yards/game to 187.8 yards/game.

Part of this is due to spreading the ball around a bit more to their other receiving targets, including the tight ends, who in Weeks 5-6 have caught 12 pass targets for 112 yards, (9.3 avg) and two touchdowns–a slight increase from Weeks 1-4 when they caught 13 balls for 106 yards (8.2 avg) and one touchdown.

This is in no way to suggest that the Giants are better off without Nabers, who is not only their best receiving option but also skilled at beating man coverage.

Instead, perhaps the current lack of urgency reported by Russini could be due to the Giants’ receiving game not being as bad as initially thought, if the numbers are to be believed.

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