When the New York Giants passed twice on Ohio State safety Caleb Downs in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft, star wide receiver Malik Nabers did not understand the decision.
“I would rather get him then play against him…I’m just saying that Downs was there twice,” Nabers said on Bleacher Report’s live stream with Micah Parsons. “The reason why I said Caleb Downs…is because we just traded [Dexter Lawerence], you need you need interior D line— I understand getting outside backer he wants to rush
OK—but when you eliminate something from there you, have to put something in the back end to be secure.
“Love the player [Arvell Reese] , don’t get me wrong. But where do you play?” Nabers said. “He is going to want to be on the outside to rush but we just drafted somebody [Abdul Carter] last year to do that same position.”
You had to figure that did not sit well with new head coach John Harbaugh, an 18-year head coach with a Super Bowl title and 15 winning seasons on his resume.
Harbaugh’s first instinct might have been to read Nabers the “I’m the boss” riot act. The 63-year-old head coach, though, took a different tack when he spoke to Nabers about the Giants’ first-round decisions on Friday morning.
Harbaugh said the two “had a great conversation.”
“We were talking about it. He made himself clear. He even said, if you go back and you watch it, I appreciate kind of where he’s coming from,” Harbaugh said. “You’re in a podcast and talking ball, and he’s, just, like how are you going to use the guy, how is he going to play? Don’t get me wrong. He said, don’t get me wrong. I think maybe we got him wrong out there a little bit, because that’s what we do in our world.”
“We look at one thing and say, well, he must be mad about it. It’s like he said, I was curious about how you were going to use him. I showed him how we’re going to use him. He is fired up about it.
“I appreciate it. You know, one thing that you’ll kind of probably see as we go here, we don’t get too worried about stuff. You know, as long as a person’s heart is in the right place, as long as the person really cares, a player, a coach, or anybody, you really want what’s best for everybody, you’re coming from — he has a good heart and a good place, you know, say what you think. Put it out there.”
Harbaugh had no issue with explaining to Nabers the plan for how the Giants are intending to use Reese, the No. 5 overall selection.
“So Malik wants to know how we’re going to use our first-round pick, I want to show him. I want to explain it to him. The fact that he says it publicly, who cares? I know fans are probably thinking the same thing. It was the same question that everybody is going to have, and we knew that, because we knew how kind of Arvell was perceived,” Harbaugh said.
“So I know we’ve got a great vision for him, and I think we saw him — he’s a player that fits our structure, our defense very uniquely, and maybe that’s hard for people to see, but you’ll see it soon enough.
“Malik was fired up and happy. He was the first guy that met him coming in the building when they got in here. He couldn’t wait to get out there to make sure they knew, that Arvell knew, that his family knew where he was at with it.”
In the end, Harbaugh has made this into a non-issue.
