Malik Nabers Camp Update — August 16: Team Drills Open Monday, and the Timeline Is Holding
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 17
Malik Nabers becomes eligible to rejoin seven-on-seven and full team periods Monday, August seventeenth, the biggest step yet in his ACL comeback. June said the knee carried everything, and every scheduled box is getting checked on time.
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Malik Nabers becomes eligible to join seven-on-seven and 11-on-11 periods Monday, August seventeenth, the next big step in his return from the torn ACL, per Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post via Yahoo. John Harbaugh confirmed the direction: "We're looking towards soon ramping him up into some group periods and perhaps some team periods. Maybe next week." And the coach's temperature read was warm: "He's doing great. He's working hard. Spirits are high."
The June preview said the Nabers file was really two data points and one question. The data points: an elite rookie season of a hundred nine catches and 1200 yards, then four games of alpha usage in year two, a 27 percent target share and a 44 percent share of the air yards, before the knee ended everything. The question was the knee itself, torn ACL plus meniscus with a second cleanup procedure, and we said the honest posture was caution: Week 1 was the optimistic end of a real range, not a lock, and availability came before every other conversation.
This week moved the needle toward the optimistic end. Beyond the Monday eligibility, Pat Leonard of the New York Daily News reported on August twelfth that Nabers might jump into team periods as soon as this coming week and "has looked good out here" in individual drills and route work, via Rodney Knuppel at Athlon. He dialed back his workload Wednesday, but Dunleavy's reporting is specific that the reduction was the scheduled rehab program, planned rather than a setback. And the Week 1 target, September thirteenth against Dallas, remains intact, per Knuppel.
Does the June read hold? CONFIRMED — June said watch availability first and trust the steps, not the talk, and the steps keep arriving on schedule, with group work opening Monday and the opener still the stated target.
Next week is the real test, though: eligibility is not participation. Watch whether Nabers actually takes seven-on-seven and team reps in the Miami joint-practice week, and how he moves when he does, because explosiveness is the last thing back from a knee. We'll check next Sunday.
_Data via nflverse._
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