Why Xavier McKinney is the most important NY Giants defensive player

Even though there are many NY Giants that were drafted higher or make more money than rookie safety Xavier McKinney, he’s still the most important player on the defense moving forward.

There were not many – if any – mock drafts that had former Alabama safety, Xavier McKinney, landing with the NY Giants in 2020. The main reason for that was because McKinney was widely considered the consensus top safety, putting him in the #15-#25 range on most mock draft experts’ big boards.

It’s widely known that Big Blue is lacking a real difference-making playmaker on its defense at the moment, so just getting a shot at McKinney – who has that type of potential – was a blessing.

So with the NY Giants holding selections at #4 and #36, it seemed like a fairy tale that he would ever end up with Big Blue. Despite that, GM Dave Gettleman did a fantastic job of being patient, reading the situations at hand, and ultimately landing the top safety in the draft at a dire position of need that is critical in today’s air raid NFL.

Even having said all that, you’re probably still wondering why I would make the claim that the former Alabama stud is the most important player on the defense moving forward, even though there are higher-drafted players and some other defenders that have actually had success in the NFL already at important positions.

The reasons are that the team has one of the handfuls of worst – if not the worst – pass-rushing groups in the NFL at the moment. Due to that, McKinney’s main responsibility, which is projected to be the team’s center fielding free safety, becomes ever more critical as opposing quarterbacks look to move the ball down the field with all the extra time they’ll have in the pocket.

In my opinion, he’s also got the highest ceiling on the entire defense, as DeAndre Baker has messed that up for himself at the moment (allegedly), and although Dexter Lawrence is a very promising young interior defensive lineman, the position just isn’t as important on the value chart as a center fielding/versatile do-it-all free safety in 2020.

Head coach Joe Judge and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham are going to have a lot of fun lining Mckinney up all over the field like the chess piece he is and his versatility and coverage skills make him more important than Jabrill Peppers in my book, too.

Las Vegas seems to agree with my sentiment in general terms as they have his odds listed among the highest to win the defensive rookie of the year out of the entire class of defenders, and for good reason.

During his last two seasons at Alabama before coming out early, the safety had 4 forced fumbles in 2019 alone (unheard of for a defensive back), another 2 in 2018 to go along with 6 sacks, 5 interceptions, and 15 passes defended.

He was also a tackling machine, racking up an insane 169 total tackles in that same span.

To make things even better for McKinney, he’ll be paired up with another versatile safety in Jabirill Peppers that will only keep offenses guessing more.

While we haven’t even witnessed a NY Giants practice yet since he’s joined the team, there’s a fairly good chance we look back on this pick as the one that revitalized our long-suffering (since 2016) defense,