Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers and Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels have a $10,000 bet on which LSU standout is going to win Rookie of the Year in 2024.
Nabers told The Pivot podcast that he and his college teammate made the bet well before draft night, when Daniels went No. 2 overall to Washington and Nabers went No. 6 to New York.
“Going against him is gonna be fun,” Nabers, 20, told The Pivot in Detroit last Thursday after getting picked. “We got a bet going for Rookie of the Year. Whoever loses gotta pay, I think it’s $10,000 cash.”
The two former Tigers stars are now division rivals, so they are guaranteed to face each other twice a year in the NFC East.
Nabers said both he and Daniels will have no problem treating each other as rivals.
“When we walk out that tunnel, me and him — since we [are] on different sides — we know it’s time to talk sh-t now,” Nabers said with a smile. “We done talked sh-t with other people. So it’s time to talk sh-t with each other.”
Daniels is a major reason that Nabers is in this position, though, he said. So that living out their dreams together as opponents will mean the world to them personally.
“Having that guy as a teammate, he’s a great leader, a great person to be around,” Nabers said. “I probably wouldn’t have had the year I had without him — by him pushing me every day at practice, by him waking me up in the morning to go watch film, him having my back through it all. Just having that guy in my corner has been the best.
He said their first jersey swap will be a “great moment.”
“Having that LSU legendary status when you [are] going into the league, seeing your brother across that you played with, ya’ll guys finally accomplished your dreams,” Nabers said. “So having that brother two times a year on a gameday, able to talk sh-t, able to share jersey swaps with him. That jersey’s gonna mean a lot to me and him.”
Not that Nabers will be focused on anything but winning. The young receiver’s confidence and swagger jumped off the screen as he explained his killer mentality to hosts Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder.
“This game could have been taken from me early a lot of different times. So when I’m out there on the field, the mentality that I have is, ‘I’m gonna f— you over,’” Nabers said. “When I get that opportunity, I’m gonna do it. Because a person’s gonna do it to me. So if I can do it to you before you do it to me 100 times on the field before you can get that one, I’m gonna keep doing it every time.
“I’m not gonna stop,” Nabers continued. “It is what it is. Because that one time it’s gonna happen to me, it’s gonna be pushed and talked about more than anything. So if I got the ups, I got the ups. That’s just how it is. I’m hoping to have the ups every time.”
Nabers didn’t know he was going to the Giants specifically when the first round of the NFL Draft arrived, but he said “I kept hearing I’m not getting past top 8.”
“So they was telling me anybody after four, you make ’em pay when you play ’em,” he said. “So it was just whoever passes me up after that, it’s war after that.”
That puts the Los Angeles Chargers on the hook as a team Nabers has circled to embarrass whenever he faces them.
It stuck out how much this journey means to Nabers personally, however, when he described the dinner he had with family and friends in Detroit the night before the draft.
“We shared tears in this restaurant,” he said. “Last night I went around the table. And I spoke about [how] all the people that [were] here at the table [were] here for a reason. I shared a story that a lot of them probably thought I forgot or didn’t know. A lot of key moments in my past that — they helped me when I was a child, they helped my mother, when she didn’t have — they helped me when I didn’t have school clothes to go to school.
“So it was just the little things that mattered to me when I was a kid that led to this moment,” he added. “The little things that counted for me rather than the big things. To spend that night with them, they’ve been crying all week, crying all month to hear my name. So I’m just living it up with them.”
And he balances that sentiment with supreme confidence that he takes to the field.
Like how he handles the pressure of being the next great LSU wide receiver.
“I know there’s gonna be a lot on my shoulders for that — but I’m like that,” Nabers said with a huge grin.
Asked how he will handle New York, Nabers said: “I got a nice smile so, I got a nice style so, yeah. I’m ready.”
