Giants Loaded the Receiver Room With Veterans. Now They Need Them to Deliver.

Last year at this time, the New York Giants' wide receiver group ranked 24th in Pro Football Focus’s preseason ranking—and that was with a healthy Malik Nabers in the lineup.

With Nabers currently still rehabbing from a torn ACL and the Giants having added a slew of older veterans like Odell Beckham Jr, Juju Smith-Schuster, Darnell Mooney, Calvin Austin, and Braxton Berrios to go along with third-round rookie Malachi Fields, the room looks much different.

But different doesn’t necessarily equate to better, as there are still pressing questions to be answered once the team opens training camp next month at The Greenbrier.

The optimistic outlook for New York's receiver group has to start with the health of its most impactful member. Nabers is still recovering from the knee injury that ended his 2025 campaign, and his availability for the beginning of the season is in doubt.

The Giants' passing offense was limited without its star wideout. Since Nabers joined the Giants in 2024 in the first round of that year’s draft, the passing game has averaged 267.6 yards per game; without him, that average is 164.6.

The Giants averaged 180.1 passing yards per game with Nabers and 96.5 passing yards per game without him. Further, the injury-related exit of Nabers last year meant a heavier reliance on the tight ends.

If Nabers is healthy, he'll be set to remind the rest of the NFL just how dominant he can be. As a rookie, he finished seventh in total receiving yards (1,204) among 11 receivers who had a minimum of 135 targets that year.

Giants Hedge Their Bets on Veteran Depth

A true X-receiver, the Giants have yet to find another player at the position with the former LSU’s elite separation and agility that makes him such a challenge to cover—and a necessity for the offense moving forward.

The Giants are hoping their offseason gambles on older talent pay off. New York added six receivers this offseason for two reasons. The first and most obvious is to ensure that they have a fallback option in case Nabers isn’t physically ready.

The second is to find a complement to Nabers who can draw some attention away from the bracket coverage that a healthy Nabers regularly drew as he became more established as a threat.

Last year, now-former receiver Wan’Dale Robinson emerged as the top receiving threat after Nabers went down with his injury, recording his first 1,000-yard season.

This year, the Giants are potentially looking at a mix of candidates to give them the production they seek from the passing game, a combination that will include Fields, Mooney, and probably one of Beckham or Smith-Schuster.

Mooney is someone to watch. He received a one-year, fully guaranteed contract worth $3 million, so it stands to reason the coaches envision a decent-sized role for the 5-foot-11, 175-pound receiver.

While Mooney hasn’t had a 1,000-yard season since 2021, when he posted 1,055 yards as a member of the Bears (whose head coach was current Giants offensive coordinator Matt Nagy), Mooney projects to challenge Darius Slayton, the longest tenured member of the team, for the team’s WR2 role.

Beckham will probably be the second biggest storyline of the summer as he looks to ride off into the sunset on a wave of positivity and production for the team that drafted him in the first round of the 2014 draft.

While no one expects Beckham to be the same player who dazzled Giants fans during his first stint with the team, if he can offer solid production in the passing game, he has a chance to be the WR1 for the Giants until Nabers returns and Fields establishes himself.

The Giants' receiver situation is a gamble, but Beckham, Mooney, Fields, and the rest of the receiver room will have all summer to prove the Giants got it right, while Nabers' return will determine whether any of it matters.

Sign up for our free newsletter and follow us on Facebook and X for the latest news, and send your mailbag questions to us.

Add us as a preferred source on Google