New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers can see the return taking shape, but he's not ready to call it complete.
A year away from football still separates the player he was from the one he is working back toward, and Nabers said the remaining distance is less about the catch and more about the knee that has to carry him into it.
The daily signs are encouraging. Nabers said he looks better each day and that the corrections are coming from the film he watches of himself, small details he marks and then emphasizes at the next practice. The piece he and everyone around him keep returning to is trust.
"That's the last thing everybody's been talking to me about, is you got to be able to trust your knee and just go out there and do exactly what I feel
like I can do," he told reporters on Thursday. "If you never do it, you never know if you really can do it if you don't push yourself to do it."
Nabers did not pretend the hesitation is gone. An injury of this kind, he said, leaves the mind negotiating with the body until the movement is actually made and does not feel as bad as expected. Certain plays still draw an internal stop.
"My mind is like, 'oh, not yet,'" Nabers said.
Teammate Darnell Mooney has been pushing the other direction, telling him he is good and he is ready. Nabers said teammates have been trying to build the confidence to let go and play free. He is taking the message. He is not treating Sunday as the day it all arrives.
"It's game after game," he said. "Everyone's been telling me it'll take a little bit of time. You're not going to just come out there and be better than what you were before. It takes time. It's a year off of football."
That wait runs against who he has always been. Nabers said he is the player who wants it now and wants everything to go his way immediately. The length of the rehab is what interrupted that instinct.
"This process showed me how to just be patient, wait on time," he said. "Everything has its time and a place."
Nabers was direct about the competitor who would have already been tired of it.
"The old me definitely would have been. Through this whole rehab, I've kind of just trusted the patience of taking my time. When it's your time, you're going to know. And then after that, just taking advantage of it," he said.
Nabers pinpointed a play that shows what taking advantage used to look like. On a slant last week, he caught the ball, saw a hole and broke outside. It was the kind of catch he used to turn into 25 or 30 yards, maybe more.
"I left a lot," he said. "I caught it, seen a hole, and then broke out running. But probably could have got way more. Before I got injured, I would have got more. I think for sure."
The catch counted. The finish is the part Nabers is still chasing.
This article originally appeared on Giants Wire: New York Giants' Malik Nabers makes honest admission about his knee
