NY Giants DB Xavier McKinney having Pro Bowl type year in his second NFL season
NY Giants safety Xavier McKinney is having himself a Pro Bowl type season. He’s only in his second year in the league and is looking like a superstar.
In this season alone, McKinney has a team-high five interceptions thus far, 59 total tackles, nine pass deflections, and one touchdown which was a pick-six. For this past weekend’s games, Pro Football Focus graded him as the top safety of the week.
"“Zay is a guy that last year, obviously, missed a significant amount of development time with being hurt and you saw him last year improve every week.” Giants head coach Joe Judge told reporters, following Sunday’s win over the Eagles. “He’s a guy that this year has continuously gotten better. One thing we’ve really found with him is this guy can do a lot of things close to the line of scrimmage.“He can cover man, he can play underneath as a robber, he does all those things very well. The one thing he really does exceptionally well is playing the deep part of the field. That’s where he’s made a lot of plays right now. He plays with very good vision, very good instincts. He’s very intelligent. He plays with good discipline on the backend of the field. He’s made a lot of plays by sitting back there, letting the play develop and then he, obviously, has the skillset physically to make those breaks and finish with those catches.”"
McKinney’s development has been fun to watch, since his arrival as the NY Giants’ second-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, and he’s quickly become a mainstay in the starting lineup; whether it’s alongside Julian Love or Logan Ryan. And figures to be key to the NY Giants’ defense the rest of this season and beyond.