Malik Nabers is opening up about his new veteran teammate. The Giants receiver spoke this week about what it means to share a locker room with Odell Beckham Jr., and the answers were more honest than the usual training-camp platitudes.
Nabers and Beckham are both LSU guys. They both wore No. 13. They both got drafted top 15 as receivers with more juice than the rest of the class. The comparisons have been unavoidable since Nabers arrived in the league, and now the two of them are actually in the same room every day.
What Nabers said, in short, is that having Beckham around is a real advantage. He gets to see up close how a veteran manages his body, prepares for opponents, and handles the media. That kind of exposure is worth a lot at 22 years old.
Beckham has spent his post-Giants career on the move. Cleveland, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Miami. He has one Super Bowl ring. He has ten years of experience against elite corners. He has stories about every stadium in the league. The Giants brought him back for a reason, and that reason was not just nostalgia.
Nabers had one of the best rookie seasons of any receiver in recent memory in 2024, then dealt with an injury in 2025 that shortened his year. The Giants are counting on him to be the top target for whoever plays quarterback this fall, and that role gets easier when there is a veteran presence next to him.
The generational hand-off is a real thing in football. The best players learn from the guys who came before them. Julio Jones learned from Roddy White in Atlanta. Justin Jefferson learned from Adam Thielen in Minnesota. Now Nabers gets a version of that from a receiver he grew up watching.
The one-handed catch highlight tape Beckham has does not translate to Nabers’s game, but the professionalism does. Nabers has admitted in interviews that he is still figuring out the little things that separate good pros from great ones. Beckham has been through everything, and having him in the meeting room is going to accelerate that learning curve.
There is also a locker room dynamic to think about. Beckham is not walking in as the alpha. That is Nabers’s team now. Beckham is a supporting piece and a mentor. That kind of role can be hard for a former star to accept, but by every account Beckham has been fine with it. He seems to understand where he is in his career.
The Giants need this to work on the field too. The offense has been middle-of-the-pack at best for the last few years. Nabers is the one true elite piece. Beckham gives them a red-zone target and a matchup weapon in the slot. If those two can each play 15 games, the offense should look better than it has in a while.
Off the field, the LSU connection matters more than people realize. Beckham has been in Nabers’s ear since he came out of Baton Rouge. Now that mentorship is happening in the same building. Nabers has said openly that he has been asking Beckham questions all camp. That is exactly what you want to hear from a young star.
The Giants have not been a fun team to talk about for a long time. Nabers is fun. Beckham is fun. Together in the same offense, running out of the same tunnel, wearing the same colors, that is fun.
Whether or not it translates to wins is a different question. But the vibes are the best they have been in East Rutherford in a long time.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
