In Week 1, the New York Giants’ passing attack showed plenty of promise as Malik Nabers and Isaiah Likely put up numbers on Sunday Night Football. Week 2 was far less pretty – Jaxson Dart went down with an injury and didn’t return. Now, it turns out that the young quarterback will miss extended time and could even remain sidelined for the rest of the season after further testing revealed more significant damage than previously thought.
That leaves Jameis Winston as the Giants’ top thrower moving forward. Can fantasy football managers still trust Malik Nabers and Isaiah Likely with Jaxson Dart injured?
Can fantasy managers trust Malik Nabers and Isaiah Likely without Jaxson Dart?
This Giants offense was projected to take a step forward this year with John Harbaugh now coaching a unit with young talent. Dart was widely considered an ascending quarterback with his dual-threat ability, Nabers had proven himself already prior to his torn ACL and Likely seemed poised for a breakout in a featured role. That’s not even mentioning the presence of Cam Skattebo in the backfield, commanding a little bit of extra defensive attention in the box.
Week 1 showed what could be for the team’s pass-catchers in fantasy football. Nabers caught six of his nine targets for 69 yards and 12.9 fantasy points in PPR formats, a very positive sign in his return from injury. Likely exploded with a career-best game of 27.8 points behind eight catches for 78 yards and two touchdowns on eight targets. However, neither replicated those performances in Week 2 as they finished with just 1.1 and 8.3 points, respectively.
The matchup was part of why both players failed to repeat as top performers. After all, the Los Angeles Rams’ defense is a much better unit than that of the Dallas Cowboys. What mattered more than the assignment was the injury to Dart, though. Early in the first quarter, he went down with a leg injury and was replaced by Jameis Winston, who went just 11-for-27 with 111 yards and an interception in relief. Dart was seen pacing the sideline in street clothes later in the night and the initial diagnosis didn’t seem to be particularly severe. An MCL sprain wasn’t expected to sideline him for significant time – but that outlook has now changed as of Tuesday.
Per NFL Network’s Mike Garofolo and Ian Rapoport, an MRI revealed more severe damage than previously anticipated and Dart is expected to miss extended time, if not the remainder of the season.
That means that Winston will likely serve as the Giants’ quarterback for the foreseeable future. In a nutshell, he’s been of the most unpredictable signal-callers in the NFL throughout his career. The veteran is prone to posting massive statistical outings at times that turn his receiving weapons into upside plays for fantasy football with plenty of volume, but he also commits costly turnovers and is capable of throwing his team out of the game just as quickly as he can get them back into one. What does Winston’s presence under center mean for Nabers and Likely, then?
Malik Nabers and Isaiah Likely fantasy outlook
The initial outlook for the Giants’ pass-catchers doesn’t necessarily improve or deteriorate based on Dart’s injury. Instead, it simply becomes more volatile. The big question is whether Harbaugh will trust Winston to really air the ball out. When allowed to just sling the rock with few expectations, the veteran can post 300+ yards with multiple touchdowns in a hurry. If New York frequently trails in games, that could mean massive receiving volume for Nabers and Likely that allows both to thrive in the intermediate and deep areas of the field in particular. They’ll both maintain a sky-high ceiling if they dominate the team’s target share as they should and Winston plays with his typical gunslinger bravado.
However, the floor may take a hit for both of these talents as well. Harbaugh may not give Winston a total green light, instead leaning on the run game to insulate the quarterback’s shortcomings. After all, the goal for the new head coach is to win games in real life, not in fantasy football. Expecting Winston to be a fantasy kingmaker for his weapons like he was for Jerry Jeudy during a stretch with the Cleveland Browns a couple of years ago doesn’t seem like the most prudent projection given his career history. If he becomes a turnover machine, he could easily find himself benched. Obviously, a third-string quarterback would mean bad news for every other piece of this offense.
In Dart’s absence, Nabers’ fantasy outlook probably doesn’t see a big change in either direction. It’s easier to write off a poor Week 2 as the result of a difficult assignment against All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie and the relief appearance for Winston, rather than a sign of things to come. The wideout remains the team’s clear top target moving forward and Winston is capable of supporting at least one fantasy asset, though it should be noted there may be a slightly more week-to-week variance in terms of Nabers’ floor/ceiling.
As for Likely, the 10 targets he saw with Winston under center in Week 2 were extremely encouraging. While the tight end caught just five of them for 33 yards, the volume looked great. Granted, a downturn in that area is inevitable unless the quarterback finds himself going full gunslinger over the coming weeks. That reality is within the range of outcomes, but it feels more probable that Harbaugh will want to turn to the ground attack at a higher rate. It’s tough to tell at the moment, but it’s probably best to temper expectations for Likely’s fantasy floor moving forward with a more unpredictable quarterback, though his ceiling will still be high if Winston gets to throw the ball 35+ times a game.
Can fantasy managers still trust these players without Dart? It’s a bit of a tougher sell now than it was before, but Nabers remains the safer option while Likely takes a little bit of a hit, but not a major one. Both should remain in lineups for the moment.
