Further testing has confirmed the fear that Giants WR Malik Nabers tore his right ACL in Sunday's win over the Chargers. He'll need surgery and miss the rest of the season. The timing should at least help his chances of being ready for the start of the 2026 season. We'll obviously watch for further details on that front and track his return progress.
Update: Nabers also suffered a partially torn lateral meniscus in his right knee, according to The Athletic's Dan Duggan. But that's not expected to prolong Nabers' rehab.
Losing Nabers obviously deals a brutal blow to the Giants' offense. No other WR on the roster can approximate his level of performance.
Darius Slayton figures to get the largest value boost. Like Nabers, he runs almost exclusively on the outside of the formation. When Nabers lost two games to injury last season, Slayton went:
He drew 11 targets in each of those contests, leading the team in the first and tying Wan'Dale Robinson for the lead in the second.
Slayton's playing time has been strong this year, but losing Nabers again frees up more targets.
Robinson should get a playing-time boost, adding snaps in two-WR sets to the work he already got in groupings of 3+. He becomes the best Giants bet for targets overall and looks like a weekly top-36 PPR option going forward.
Jalin Hyatt ran third among Giants WRs after Nabers went down Sunday. We'll see if he can prove relevant in his third season. Hyatt has yet to see a target in 2025 and went from 23 rookie-year catches to just 8 receptions and 62 yards for all of 2024.
Nabers just turned 22 in July and is in just the second year of a rookie deal that's sure to at least find the fifth-year option exercised by the Giants.
It obviously hurts to lose him this season, but try to resist any urge to trade the young wideout unless you absolutely need the help for a 2025 title.
Even in that case, make sure you're getting a strong return. Players commonly make full returns from ACL tears at this point, and Nabers remains well short of the historical prime for the position.
QB Jaxson Dart takes a hit to his upside by losing the team's clear No. 1 WR. If there's any silver lining here: We at least don't know what that ceiling would have looked like.
Dart still makes for an attractive fantasy asset with his combo of deep passing and mobility. He carries the eighth-highest QB score of Week 4 into the Monday night games and could still be a fantasy factor the rest of the way.
Just beware of over-trusting the rookie, who threw for just 111 yards against the Chargers.
TE Theo Johnson has a shot to gain target share from the Nabers loss. Johnson has averaged just 4.3 targets, 2.3 catches, and 16.5 yards across the first four weeks, though. He'll need to prove he's fantasy-viable before you should throw him into lineups, in most cases.
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