Giants Country

Giants Land a Different Stud Rookie Receiver in New 2024 Redraft

The Giants selection of Malik Nabers has been an instant success for the franchise, but imagine if they had gone in this direction instead.

Stephen Lebitsch

Dec 29, 2024; Jacksonville, Florida, USA; Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr (7) celebrates a touchdown against the Tennessee Titans in the fourth quarter at EverBank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images
Dec 29, 2024; Jacksonville, Florida, USA; Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr (7) celebrates a touchdown against the Tennessee Titans in the fourth quarter at EverBank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images / Jeremy Reper-Imagn Images
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While the Joe Schoen-Brian Daboll regime is on the verge of meeting with New York Giants ownership in an attempt to plead their case towards returning as a tandem for 2025, one point on which they won’t have to do much convincing is the future promise of wide receiver Malik Nabers. 

But how different would the pick, and the Giants overall offense, have looked now at the end of the season if the duo chose to select a different face from the position class last April? Would that guy be the same or a more reliable weapon for the quarterback that Nabers has been?

At the time of the draft, there was a debate between Marvin Harrison Jr, who ultimately went to the Arizona Cardinals at No. 4, and Nabers as to who was the top receiving target in the group. 

With a full season under their helmets, all signs point towards New York winning big with their selection of the latter, who has outpaced Harrison Jr. with a stat line of 104 catches for 1,140 yards and six touchdowns that ranks eighth in the NFL heading into Week 18. 

Even with Nabers’ heroics in his debut year in blue, which has included being at the table of the top-10 players at the position and the most active rookie producer in recent Giants history, there has been one surprise name who could arguably be doing it better this season despite being with an equally abysmal organization.

That would be fellow rookie pass catcher Brian Thomas Jr., currently of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who has had at least one writer pondering what his year would be like in Giants’ blue. 

In The 33rd Team analyst Tyler Brooke’s latest redraft of the top eight selections from this past year’s festivities, he had the franchise grabbing the fellow LSU stud with their same No. 6 overall pick. 

“Harrison Jr. continues to slide in this draft, but not because he's bad by any means. It's more about the incredible seasons that other receivers like Brian Thomas Jr. are having,” Brooke wrote.

“Even with injuries to Trevor Lawrence that have kept him sidelined as of late, BTJ continues to be one of the most productive wideouts in football. He's caught 80 passes for 1,179 yards and 10 touchdowns, looking like a home-run threat at all times with his height-weight-speed profile.”

“[The Giants] will still need to figure out the quarterback position, but whoever they would have taken at quarterback in this redraft would have had no one to throw to.”

Compared to the actual thing where the same three quarterbacks went off the board first but in a new order, Thomas would be the second wide receiver taken off the board by New York after Arizona flipped their selection from the aforementioned Harrison to the other Tiger product in Nabers with their fourth overall choice. 

The next two picks would end up being gunslingers, one of whom went five spots earlier than his actual destination. Then the Bears would snag Harrison instead of the Washington prospect in Rome Odunze, who they paired with quarterback Caleb Williams. 

With another redo like this one, it was still a surprise that the Giants didn’t snag one of the remaining gunslingers in Bo Nix or Michael Penix Jr., both guys having some unexpectedly positive initial runs with their respective teams when they had the chance to fill their biggest roster need for the long-term future.

And while they didn’t land one of the most versatile outside prospects who has flashed in numerous spots this season, they ended up pairing with a prospect in this scenario whose production numbers have eclipsed the rest of the receiver pool in nearly every major category for a very subpar Jaguars offense.

If one recalls, the Giants seemed very intentional in moving up the draft board and selling off the farm to acquire one of the highly coveted quarterback prospects that went in the top three turns. 

The one problem was that none would budge, particularly the New England Patriots, who landed Williams No. 3 in the redraft yet recruited Drake Maye to be their hopeful heir apparent. 

Thus, Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll fell back on their plan B of taking a massive playmaker to partner with quarterback Daniel Jones and give him an Odell Beckham Jr.-style receiver from the same school to thread the football to. Nabers was the most vertically gifted option in the class, with solid hands and fluidity in space, so they pulled the trigger on his candidacy without a second thought. 

The two LSU alums played together for three seasons in Death Valley, but Nabers boasted the heavier yardage at over 3,000 yards and 20 touchdowns compared to Thomas’s 1,897 yards and 24 scores in the same time frame. 

That has changed for the latter player since entering the pros with his college teammate up north in the Big Apple. Nabers has had the advantage of being a larger focus in the Giants' offense with a league-leading 62 targets, which he’s converted into a 1,000-yard campaign but trails Thomas in just about every other main statistic, including yards (1,179) and average catch (14.7). 

Thomas has left his extra mark in the athletic profile that Brooks mentioned in his analysis, and he can stay on the field longer than Nabers, with 16 total starts. He has the intangibles to break away from tackles in less space more easily, and it has elevated his after-contact yardage and ability to score a few more times than Nabers has for New York. 

If the Giants had snagged him up in reality, their offense would have a few more scores than they have had on the year, and Thomas would have offered a little sweetening to the dismal production that has come from the rest of the receiving corps.

Still, Nabers has done a lot with the cards he has been dealt, including averaging 81.4 yards per game, which leads the Giants despite playing with four different quarterbacks. 

Even so, Thomas’s work hasn’t done much to set the Jaguars offensive unit apart from the rest of the league. They’ve held their own issues at the quarterback position as Trevor Lawrence has been sidelined with injuries and hasn’t been able to carve teams up on a collective basis on either side of the ball that much better than the Giants have.

In the end, it comes down to how the Giants would view certain statistics weighing heavier over the rest. They don’t seem to have many issues with the impressive year Nabers has provided them, and his future looks promising if they can pair him with the right quarterback next season and beyond.

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Stephen Lebitsch
STEPHEN LEBITSCH

“Stephen Lebitsch is a graduate of Fordham University, Class of 2021, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Communications (with a minor in Sports Journalism) and spent three years as a staff writer for The Fordham Ram. With his education and immense passion for the space, he is looking to transfer his knowledge and talents into a career in the sports media industry. Along with his work for the FanNation network and Giants Country, Stephen’s stops include Minute Media and Talking Points Sports.

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