The New York Giants took an edge prospect with a top-five pick for the second year in a row and the third time in the past five drafts on Thursday night, and their top wide receiver appeared perplexed by the decision when it reached the podium in Pittsburgh.
After the Giants used the first of their two top-10 picks on Arvell Reese, Malik Nabers voiced his confusion about New York’s selection of the Ohio State product with the No. 5 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft.
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Nabers, whom the Giants took out of LSU with the sixth pick in the 2024 draft, clearly wanted his team to snag Reese’s Ohio State teammate, safety Caleb Downs.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love the player,” Nabers said of Reese on a Bleacher Report livestream. “But … where do you play? You want to be on the outside and rush, but we just drafted somebody last year to do that same position.”
Nabers was alluding to the Giants taking former Penn State star Abdul Carter with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 draft.
Three years before that, New York scooped up Kayvon Thibodeaux from Oregon with the fifth pick in the 2022 draft. Thibodeaux and Carter are both pass rushers playing the linebacker position for the Giants. Reese files into a similar category.
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In 2022, the Giants also had two top-10 picks, the second of which they used on former Alabama offensive lineman Evan Neal.
Those picks haven’t panned out the way New York envisioned. That put more pressure on general manager Joe Schoen and new head coach John Harbaugh to hit a home run in the first round of this year’s draft.
They feel they did so, coupling Reese with former Miami offensive lineman Francis Mauigoa, whom they chose with the 10th pick.
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In the aftermath of the Reese pick at No. 5, Nabers explained why he wanted New York to take Downs at that spot instead.
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“The reason why I say Caleb Downs,” Nabers said, “you have to get ’em when they’re available.”
Nabers added: “And because we just traded [Dexter Lawrence], you need interior D-Line. I understand getting [an] outside ’backer. He wants to rush, OK cool. But I’m saying, though, when you eliminate something from there, you have to put something in the back end. …”
Nabers was then predictably upset when Downs fell to the NFC East rival Dallas Cowboys, who traded up to get him with the 11th pick.
“I’d rather get him than play against him,” said Nabers, who played against Downs when Downs was at Alabama in 2023, on the Bleacher Report livestream. “I got to play against this thing again. … Bro, he’s good. He’s very good. He’s very good.”
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Nabers’ comments about the Reese pick unsurprisingly made the rounds on social media. He responded to the noise on X.
“First off, we have to stop overreacting,” Nabers posted. “I would never intentionally take away from the biggest moment/night of Arvell’s life. Very excited to see him play on the team and happy that we have another dawg on the squad!!”
Less than 10 minutes later, Nabers fired off another post.
“NEVER ONCE WAS NOT HAPPY CHILLAT,” he wrote.
Although Reese is yet another edge prospect the Giants have prioritized, it appears they don’t see their growing linebacking corps, which also includes Brian Burns and Tremaine Edmunds, as homogeneous.
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“Arvell is a versatile player, and we’re going to play him at inside backer, Will linebacker,” Harbaugh said Thursday night, via SNY. “Our defense is pretty flexible, positionless, you might call it. We have an opportunity to move those guys around, but he’ll line up next to Tremaine, and he’ll be in the A gap, the B gap, the C gap, the D gap off the edge. He’ll be moving around with all of our guys, Abdul and Brian and Kayvon and Tremaine.
“He’s gotten better every single year playing off the ball and on the ball, so he does both. Probably why he was our highest-rated non-quarterback player in the draft. He’s an exciting player. We are fired up to have him.”
