EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Malik Nabers had not given the New York Giants an answer on whether he will play in Sunday night’s season opener against the Dallas Cowboys, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Sunday morning.
New York listed Nabers as questionable with a knee injury on the final injury report of the week, released Friday. He was the only Giant given a game designation. Nabers practiced in full Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Schefter said the call belongs to Nabers rather than to the training staff, and that the Giants moved on receiver depth Saturday without having it.
“The big injury question centers around Malik Nabers,” Schefter said, “whose status for tonight’s game remains murky at best. The Giants elevated two wide receivers to their 53-man roster on Saturday, but they have not gotten clarity from Nabers, who has said he is leaving whether or not he plays to God. He wants God to guide him about whether he will go tonight against the Cowboys.”
The two moves took different forms. New York elevated wide receiver Braxton Berrios from the practice squad and signed wide receiver Dalen Cambre to the 53-man roster, according to the team’s transaction announcement. Berrios reverts to the practice squad after the game.
No corresponding move was needed for Cambre. The Giants had carried 52 players since releasing wide receiver Darius Slayton on Sept. 7.
Malik Nabers Left the Week 1 Call to Himself
Nabers weighed the football still in front of him against one September game.
“I’ve been wanting to play for so long now,” Nabers said in comments distributed Thursday by SNY. “At the end of the day, I can’t put my career at risk. I got to take that into account. There’s a lot of football that I still have left to play.”
SNY’s Connor Hughes reported that the Giants and their medical staff have cleared Nabers and believe he can play. The holdup is Nabers.
Nabers tore an ACL in Week 4 of the 2025 season. New York placed him on injured reserve on Sept. 29, 2025, and activated him from the list on Feb. 15, 2026. He had a cleanup procedure on the knee in April.
As a rookie in 2024, Nabers caught 109 passes for 1,204 yards and 7 touchdowns in 15 games. He was voted to the Pro Bowl. Four games into last season he had 18 receptions for 271 yards and 2 touchdowns, and then the season ended.
The Giants took Nabers sixth overall in the 2024 draft. He signed a four-year contract worth $28,539,229 that carried a $17,575,803 signing bonus and a fifth-year option.
Sunday is John Harbaugh‘s first game as Giants coach.
New York Giants Added Braxton Berrios and Dalen Cambre on Saturday
Berrios signed with New York on June 1. The Giants released him Aug. 30 during final cuts and re-signed him to the practice squad on Sept. 2.
The Athletic’s Dan Duggan reported that the Berrios elevation was a special teams decision and was not tied to Nabers’ status.
Over 91 games, Berrios has 140 receptions for 1,360 yards and 6 touchdowns. He was a first-team All-Pro returner in 2021 and has 3,395 career return yards. He played four games for the Houston Texans last season and caught 6 passes for 37 yards.
Cambre signed with the Giants as an undrafted free agent out of Louisiana on May 9, 2025. He has played 7 career games. New York released him on Aug. 31 and re-signed him to the practice squad on Sept. 2.
Kickoff at MetLife Stadium is set for 7:20 p.m. CT on NBC and Peacock. The Giants and Cowboys meet again at AT&T Stadium on Jan. 3.
