Malik Nabers to wear long-retired No. 1 after family of Giants icon gives blessing

Malik Nabers is already No. 1 in the hearts and minds of many Giants fans.

And now, The Post has learned, he will be the first Giant to wear No. 1 since the late Hall of Fame Giant end-defensive end Ray Flaherty became the first professional football player to have his number retired in 1935.

Nabers, the Giants’ No. 1 pick, wore 8 at LSU and switched to 9 in training camp. Before John Mara received the green light from the Flaherty family, made aware of all the retired single numbers (1, Tuffy Leemans’ 4 and Mel Hein’s 7) in Giants history, Nabers began exploring other options — Drew Lock’s No. 2 and Jamie Gillian’s No. 6 — but to no avail.

“Only because it was gonna be pretty hard at trying to get the jersey unretired,” Nabers told the Post.

But if anything could be done, Nabers told Mara: “No. 1 would be fine.”

But hope remained for No. 1. “It was just a wait of a process to see what the family was gonna say,” Nabers said.

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Ray Flaherty Jr. officially on Wednesday gave his blessings to Mara and the franchise, which intends to return his father’s No. 1 to retirement again once Nabers’ Giants career ends. “Re-retired if you will,” Flaherty Jr. told the Post.

Nabers had asked GM Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll early in training camp if it would be possible to switch to a new number.

“After thinking about it a little bit, my feeling was we would allow that only if the Flaherty family was OK with it,” Mara told the Post. “I think it’s very gracious on their part, and Malik understands that that comes with a certain responsibility and how he needs to conduct himself and represent the organization and the Flaherty family. He’s been great about it, he immediately called them to thank them.”

Nabers called Flaherty Jr. before practice Wednesday. “I said, “I really appreciate you letting me wear your father’s retired jersey. I’m gonna wear it with honor. I’m gonna do my best when I’m out there on the field to represent y’all the right way,’” Nabers told him.

Flaherty Jr. appreciated the call. “He seems like a fine young man,” he said. “I feel really good about it after he made the call.”

Schoen had approached Nabers at his locker before practice Wednesday and told him: “We’re going upstairs.”

I was like, “Alright, for what? In the back of my mind I was kinda scared ‘cause I didn’t know why I was going to the Boss’ office.”

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Nabers recalls Mara asking him: “So what are we gonna do about the number?”

“I was like, the No. 1 they said no, ‘cause I had heard that they had said no the first time,” Nabers said. “He was like, ‘Do you still want 1?’ I was like, ‘If the family don’t want me to wear it I’m not gonna keep pushing on the family to let me wear 1.’ He was like, ‘Nah, they said yeah.’

“It was laugh enjoyment when he told me.”

Flaherty has two sons and a daughter. “We kinda took a vote originally, and we didn’t know much about Malik,” Flaherty Jr. said. “There might be somebody alive when my dad played from that time area but they were so small that they wouldn’t remember. John Mara made a pretty good point that it was kind of a good way to get his name out again.

Mara is excited by what he has seen from the No. 6 pick of the draft. “He’s got some unique skills. . .certainly he’s somebody you notice when you’re out in the practice field, and he’s been very noticeable in the game as well,” Mara said.

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Flaherty Jr. seconds that emotion. “Very athletic . .some of the catches he made are very great,” he said..”A wide receiver can step in and make a difference right away. I think he’s gonna have a great career – – and I hope he does.”

Nabers has never worn No. 1 at any level. “This is a first-time thing,” he said. Current NFL players who wear No. 1 include Ja’Marr Chase, Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray.

Other Hall of Famers who wore No. 1 included Jimmy Conzelman, Paddy Driscoll, Benny Friedman, Curly Lambeau, Warren Moon, Fritz Pollard and Jim Thorpe.

Flaherty joined the Giants in 1929, left to coach the Gonzaga basketball team in 1930 and rejoined the Giants to earn first-team All-Pro honors three times.

Flaherty led the NFL in receptions, receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, yards per reception and yards per game in 1932. It was Flaherty who suggested to Giants HC Steve Owen that sneakers would provide better traction on the frozen Polo Grounds. Owen sent his friend Abe Cohen, a tailor who assisted on the Giants sideline, to Manhattan College for the sneakers, and the Giants scored 27 fourth-quarter points against the George Halas Bears to win the famed Sneakers Game for the NFL Championship.

Mara’s late HOF father Wellington was at the game as an 18-year-old. “I remember him telling me that George Halas’ reaction was, ‘Just step on their feet,’” Mara said, and laughed.

“It was something they had done at Gonzaga, where he played college football,” Flaherty Jr, said.

Flaherty became head coach of the Boston Redskins in 1936, and won four division titles and two league titles when the team moved to Washington. He is credited with inventing the screen pass and the two-platoon substitution systems. He was 90 when he passed away in Hayden, Idaho in 1994.

“It’s a nice story because it will maybe remind people why No.1 was retired in the first place and they’ll learn a little bit about Ray Flaherty,” Mara said. “It’s a nice story for us to be able to educate people about who he was.”

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