The New York Giants' No. 3 pick Abdul Carter tested the waters after being drafted by sharing that he would be interested in sporting No. 56 on his new team.

The only problem is that No. 56 is retired by the Giants organization for Lawrence Taylor. Carter expressed that Taylor is a player he looks up to as a fellow defensive star.

Taylor responded pretty quickly to Carter's desire to wear his retired number, and it sounds like he's not O.K. with it. Taylor would rather Carter make his own legacy with a new number.

"I know he would love to wear that number. But, hey, I think it’s retired. Get another number," Taylor told the New York Post. "I don’t care if it’s double zero, and then make it famous.”

Carter didn't take offense to Taylor's response at all. The NFL rookie expressed his gratitude for Taylor on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Friday night.

"The worst thing he could say was NO!! My stance don’t change, LT is the [goat emoji] nothing but respect…" he wrote. "This just gonna make me work even harder!! I love it."

There doesn't seem to be any bad blood between the Pro Football Hall of Famer and the Giants rookie. If anything, maybe this started a connection between them.

We'll see what number Carter does end up wearing in New York. The Giants' 2024 first-round pick Malik Nabers was able to wear No. 1 after Ray Flaherty's family granted the team permission to unretire his number. The Giants retired No. 11, Carter's college number, for quarterback Phil Simms, so maybe he'll be more open to the idea than Taylor was in terms of unretiring his number.

More NFL on Sports Illustrated


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Abdul Carter Responds to Giants Legend Lawrence Taylor's Plea to Not Wear No. 56.