How Football

Don’t tell New York Giants receiver Malik Nabers that he’s making eight figures just to play “a game.”

Fresh off his first practice at the Giants’ facilities, where he and his fellow freshmen are gathered for rookie minicamp, Nabers credited football for saving his life as he prepares to embark on a new metropolitan endeavor.

“I’m a funny person to be around, good person to be around. I’m just as a person that plays football, kind of thing that saved any life,” Nabers said when asked to describe himself for his new adoring public. “I take it seriously, I’m happy to be here. I’m finally here so just to get out there running with the guys it’s a dream come true.”

So how did football save his life?

“(Football was the) only thing that I felt I could do with my life, only thing I felt like when I looked on what I wanted to do in the future,” he said. It was the only thing that I had plans to do so. Saved me and my family’s life. Put my mom in a house that she wanted. Changed my life forever so I’m happy to be here. “

Friday proved to be a landmark occasion in more ways than one for Nabers, the sixth overall pick in last month’s draft: the Louisiana State alum not only donned a helmet with a lower-case “NY” stickered on for the first time, but he also inked his first professional contract, becoming the second player among the Giants’ six-man rookie class to officially sign.

Nabers isn’t making any major purchases for himself, at least not immediately. He has, after all, used his Name, Image, Likeness money earned at LSU to purchase a new house for his mother Tonya, said to be her first.

It’s a small price to pay, Nabers said, for all Tonya has offered him over the years, calling her a better source of advice than of the former players he has conversed with in the draft process.

“That was the most important thing in my life, I would say, is having her have her own house and feel comfortable and not having to worry about bills to pay and know that her little boy did it for her,” Nabers continued.

“As a mother, she’s always going to protect me from everything that comes my way. It’s an understanding that I’m doing, (that) this is my life that’s going forward in this football thing. I chose to do it and I know everything I like about football. They just watching from the back end. She’s supportive and just going to support me in any way possible. She’s just happy for me and proud of me.”

Many, of course, have endured the dark side of the game and been awakened from similar dreams. Nabers, however, has made the most of the opportunity afforded to him, departing Baton Rouge as the top receiver in the history of the storied Tigers program. When the Giants made him the sixth pick, he became the highest receiver chosen by the equally lauded blue franchise, succeeding 1997’s seventh overall choice Ike Hilliard.

“I’ve got to keep telling myself to continue to work hard,” Nabers said. “All your dreams came true, but it’s time to move on from all that. All that is over. Now it’s just being a pro.”