Giants' Malik Nabers' IHOP ad brings levity to serious ACL recovery
The Giants' Malik Nabers waves to the crowd while being carted off the field after being injured against the Chargers in a game at MetLife Stadium on Sep. 28, 2025. Credit: Getty Images/Ishika Samant
The most we’ve seen of Malik Nabers these last few months as he rehabs his torn ACL has been his appearance in an IHOP commercial that came out last week. In the spot he talks about the common last-place punishment in many fantasy football leagues of having to spend all day eating pancakes while customers and waitresses who drafted him early and had their seasons ruined by his Week 4 injury scowl at him in disgust.
“I thought it was funny,” Giants teammate and quarterback Jaxson Dart said on Wednesday of the ad with a big smile.
Said fellow wide receiver Wan’Dale Robinson, who had his rookie season cut short by a torn ACL, “I know exactly what he is feeling. It was good for him to be a little lighthearted with everything he has to go through. I loved it. I thought it was hilarious.”
That was a sentiment shared by many others in the locker room. No one begrudged him for it. And it is a very clever, amusing script -- aided by Nabers’ surprisingly deft deadpan delivery -- about the frustrations fans have when players are sidelined.
Of course it’s really only chuckle-worthy in the scope of fantasy football.
For the Giants this season, it’s been their very grim reality football. Their long nightmare.
Imagine being the guy who actually drafted him in the actual first round rather than someone who just clicked on his name or got autopicked. Or being a teammate who was counting on him. Or his quarterback who got to play with him for less than a half of a game before Nabers got hurt. Or his head coach who didn’t have to scarf down flapjacks but lost his job in part because the best player on the team couldn’t perform.
Clockwise from left: Mitch Kupchak (Brentwood), Danny Green (St. Mary's/North Babylon), Art Heyman (Oceanside) Credit: Getty Images/Kevork Djansezian; Getty Images/Lachlan Cunningham; Michael A. Rupolo Sr.
Definitely not as funny.
“It stings not to have him out there,” Dart said when the line between art and life was blurred a bit. “He is an incredible talent. He can beat anybody in the world. When you have a guy like that out there, he is a guy who is going to come down with the ball at all costs.”
In case the Giants started to forget about that during Nabers’ absence from the field, this week brought back some fond memories of what he is capable of doing. The Giants play the Cowboys on Sunday in the regular-season finale which means they have been going back to the film of their Week 2 contest in Dallas, the epic 40-37 game that, had either or both of the squads wound up with better records, would be a frontrunner for game of the year alongside some of the more recent prime time slugfests we’ve witnessed between playoff-bound clubs.
That game seems so very long ago. Interim head coach Mike Kafka – who never thought he’d have that title when it was played – said on Wednesday that it is like watching “a completely different unit.” Tight end Daniel Bellinger said it feels as ancient as watching old high school tapes. It was so long ago that running back Cam Skattebo, who had a bit of a breakout that day, was lining up on punt teams; a few weeks after that he was sitting courtside at Knicks games before his own injury sidelined him. And Dart? He played just three snaps in that game. It was his NFL debut. He handed it off twice and slipped on designed run for a 3-yard loss. Russell Wilson was the quarterback for most of that day and had his best game as a Giant… probably his best game since he left Seattle.
Nabers, though, was the real star. He caught nine passes for 167 yards and two touchdowns, one on a 29-yard pass with a defender’s hand in his face and the other a 48-yard bomb with 25 seconds left that gave the Giants a 37-34 lead and should have won the game for them.
When we think about all the elements that have been missing from the Giants for most of this season and have sent them spiraling to this point where they currently reside among the worst teams in the league, that kind of production from Nabers is a big one.
Even Robinson, who has turned Nabers’ absence into his own 1,000-yard receiving season in a contract year and figures to cash in on the opportunity, said he would have rather played with him than in place of him.
“We miss him a lot,” Robinson said. “We joke and say that both of us could have had a great year, that teams wouldn’t have keyed on me in these games and he wouldn’t have been keyed on either. I’m hoping we get to play together and have some good years to come.”
For Robinson that depends on his own free agency trajectory. For the Giants who are more assured of coming back – like Dart – that is something they are looking forward to as a definite.
“We’ll for sure continue to be together and light it up,” Dart said. “I’m excited. Those are conversations that we have a lot. We are two of some of the younger guys in the entire league at 22 so we have a long future together and there are going to be a lot of great moments. He’s been attacking this recovery process and he is going to come back stronger and better. He’s going to be hungry for sure.”
Sunday will, ideally, be the last game for a while in which Dart and Nabers are apart. The next time they take the field for a meaningful competition in September they hope to be together.
The two have spent so much of their short careers without each other that we can really only project the level of combustion when they are together, how they will help each other develop and grow and succeed. There is a lot of promise in their relationship. It could be something very special. The Giants certainly seem to be counting on that.
This team had to eat enough pancakes in 2025. Maybe Dart and Nabers can change the menu in 2026.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
