New York Giants star wide receiver Malik Nabers didn’t like what happened to new Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders on draft weekend, as most of the NFL continuously passed on the Colorado star — seemingly due to his personality and/or off-the-field reasons.
“You don’t do that to a person,” Nabers told the ‘7PM in Brooklyn With Carmelo Anthony’ podcast in an episode released to the public on May 1, “you don’t do that to somebody like that.”
“You can’t knock his talent,” the NYG playmaker went on. “I heard a lot of things about — he takes unnecessary sacks. I mean, he had a bad O-line. He threw with a 70% [completion] percentage with a bad O-line. Talk about his escaping the pocket. You can pull up plenty of clips of him escaping three-to-four tackles [and] throwing it down the field. Damn near three of his receivers had 1,000 yards. Like, you can’t knock that.”
Powerful: Giants star WR Malik Nabers is ANGRY that Browns QB Shedeur Sanders fell in the draft:
“You don’t do something like that to somebody like that. Not to a kid that’s been working his whole life. Been told that Deion’s kids were never gonna be as good as him.”
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Nabers also credited Sanders for his part in Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter earning the Biletnikoff Award for best collegiate receiver, and for creating a winning culture at Jackson State and Colorado.
“Some things you just can’t knock,” Nabers noted.
Later in the rant, he concluded that, “you don’t do that,” regarding the draft slide. “Not to a kid like that [who has] been working his whole life [to get to this point and has] been told that Deion’s kids [were] never going to be as good as him.”
Malik Nabers Says He Lost ‘Respect’ for Teams that Passed on Shedeur Sanders in the NFL Draft
Although Nabers never specifically criticized the Giants for drafting Jaxson Dart over Sanders, there were hints that he might have disapproved of their decision.
At one point, the star wide receiver voiced that he “lost a little bit of respect” for those who passed on Sanders.
“We gotta stop making feelings with how people play linger,” Nabers explained earlier. “Yeah, [Sanders] might have some things that he might say on camera off the field… that don’t have to do with how he plays football. We here for one thing, and that’s to play football. Everybody’s got different personalities… So, for [teams] to judge him on the things that he says, or how he carries himself — how he carries himself is all about his dad [Deion Sanders] raised him.”
Nabers also spoke on his Manhattan catch session with Sanders last winter, revealing that he and Shedeur were “just trying to bring some hype to New York.”
He even added that “playing catch was just our way of telling the [Giants] organization [and] everybody around what we can do if we got together.”
Giants WR Malik Nabers Kept Quieter Ahead of NFL Draft
The odd thing about Nabers’ very public comments is that he didn’t really speak out in favor of Sanders ahead of the draft.
In fact, Nabers made it clear that even if the Giants drafted a QB in round one, he’d prefer they also sign a veteran starter to bridge the gap. As we know, general manager Joe Schoen and head coach Brian Daboll eventually took his advice, bringing in both Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston.
They clearly did not consult him when it came to Sanders, however, although Nabers’ criticism appeared to be more about the polarizing quarterback prospect falling to round five than Big Blue passing on him for Dart.
