Giants Safety Xavier McKinney: The Good, the Great and the Ugly
It was an unfortunate event when Xavier McKinney broke his foot in his rookie training camp. This led to months of healing, rehabilitation, and we didn’t get a chance to see the stud 36th selection until the Giants 19-17 week 12 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.
By this point, McKinney still had to adjust to the speed of the NFL. Once he became acclimated to the speed of the NFL, those interesting traits he displayed at Alabama started to flash.
The future seems to be bright for McKinney and this Giants safety group.
The eldest member is Logan Ryan, who is entering his 9th season at the age of 30. Jabrill Peppers developed quite nicely in Patrick Graham’s system, but he is entering a contract year; I hope to see Peppers in Giants’ blue for quite some time.
The fourth member is Julian Love, who certainly has cornerback potential as well. Love is a versatile weapon that can execute many roles at a solid level.
Out of all of these quality NFL options, McKinney has the highest upside. He processes the game quickly, is aggressive with his tackling, has some centerfield upside in the middle of the field closed defenses, and he’s a good athlete.
Part of the reason why he slipped to the second round was because of a poor 40-yard-dash time that isn’t indicative of his play speed.
These sub-optimal testing numbers led to a slide in the draft, and the Giants end up being the beneficiary of that event. Let’s get into the little bit of tape that we have on McKinney in this edition of the Good, the Great, and the Ugly.
(Xavier McKinney is No. 29)
The Good: Big Plays
This play goes with “The Great” as well because McKinney shows really good eye discipline as a deep half safety in a 2-Man Under defense.
First, this is also a James Bradberry effect right here; the Giants are in a 3x1 set, and they can roll their safeties to the strong side because of the confidence they have in Bradberry on an island.
McKinney can split the difference over the top of the No. 1 and No. 2 receivers while Logan Ryan opens to Bradberry’s side, sees the release is handled, witnesses where Andy Dalton’s eyes are directed, and then flips inside to split the hashes.
As for McKinney, he stays square, slowly backpedals, and baits Dalton into throwing the football on the seven route he is anticipating from the No. 3 receiver CeeDee Lamb.
McKinney does an excellent job on this play, reading the routes and attacking the football by putting himself into a great position. Unfortunately, Darnay Holmes holds Lamb, even though Lamb initiated the contact.
I honestly don’t think it would have mattered; McKinney was in such a good position and played this rep very well. Signs of great things to come.
This is the almost game-sealing interception against the Cowboys in week 17, where Dallas’ protection breaks down, and the coverage holds up.
McKinney has a great feel for flowing with the two-out breaking receivers while splitting the space between them. McKinney does this while keeping his eyes on Dalton and tracking the batted pass into his hands.
I also appreciate how he went down in the end-zone and didn’t try to get greedy.
MORE "GOOD, GREAT & UGLY" BREAKDOWNS
WR Kelvin Benjamin | RB Devontae Booker | RB Corey Clement | OLB Lorenzo Carter | CB Isaac Yiadom | TE Kaden Smith | WR Kenny Golladay | TE Levine Toilolo | Edge Ifeadi Odenigbo | DT Danny Shelton | OL Zach Fulton | CB Adoree' Jackson | TE Evan Engram
The Great: Eye discipline
I first want to note that this trait was always there for McKinney, but his lack of experience led to a slight delay with his timing. (See the ugly).
This is an inverted Cover 2 look that appears to be Cover 3 pre-snap. At the snap, the middle field safety, McKinney, drops down into the position where the MIKE would typically be occupying in a Tampa-2 defense.
The two outside corners, on this play, then drop to deep half responsibilities, and that middle-of-the-field closed look is now middle-of-the-field open. McKinney stays at a deep depth to deter quarterbacks from making tough deeper throws over the middle of the field.
I love that McKinney is very controlled and poised as he reads the route combinations and senses the horizontal crosser from the field side.
McKinney is already flowing laterally and moving downhill to cut the angle of the crosser off while quarterback Lamar Jackson flows to his right. Jackson wants to hit the crosser but sees McKinney in position and runs the ball for a two-yard gain.
He’s in the middle of the field on this play, and this appears to be a zone match look where McKinney is the deep middle of the field closed safety.
Linebacker Blake Martinez jumps up to eliminate the quick option for Lamar Jackson in the flat, which creates a void in the middle of the field.
McKinney is reading Jackson and sees the cross come from the boundary. Before Jackson starts to rear back and throw, McKinney is already on his way to punish the crosser.
The catch is made for a short gain, but McKinney’s ability to decipher the intentions of Lamar Jackson was on point with this play. It’s a lot of ground to cover for McKinney, and he does so quickly.
McKinney is the bottom of the screen safety playing the robber; his job is to cut off any in-breaking routes from the strong side of the field or from the backside one.
The timing is excellent between Jackson and Mark Andrews on this play. McKinney does a really good job flashing right in front of Andrews to force the incompletion on this play. I don’t believe he makes contact with the ball, but his presence seems to be felt by the tight end.
McKinney is a bit late here, but that should be attributed to the Ravens adjustments against this inverted Cover 2, or Tampa-2 Robber, whatever name you prefer.
The Ravens run a quick button hook behind linebacker Tae Crowder and just before the middle of the field, the safety drops down. McKinney recognizes the quick concept but is a step too slow to disrupt the catch point.
It’s a very nice timing play by Willie Snead and Jackson; this is one of McKinney’s first games, which may be another reason he was a bit slow.
However, the diagnosis was still there, and he still comes downhill well.
The Ugly: Needs Experience
His eye discipline and poise are indeed exceptional. However, it was evident that he was just a step behind on some plays because of the speed adjustment and the missed time from injury.
This isn’t a bad problem to have, and it can be developed for sure--I believe just with time on the field.
This is a split safety look from the Giants with McKinney as the bottom of the screen safety. Dalton makes a strong throw from the far hash to Lamb, who is running a seven from the No. 2 receiver spot.
McKinney is just a step behind from reacting; Lamb starts to bend his route, and Dalton begins to wind up the throw, and McKinney is still square and not moving downhill just yet.
Holmes struggled in both games against Lamb, and this is a good call against 2-Man Under, but McKinney was just a step slow to process on this play.
Here’s the same route we saw earlier--a quick button hook behind Crowder and in between McKinney. It seemed like McKinney was stepping down as well, just like in the Inverted Cover-2; however it may be difficult to tell because the RPO action from the Ravens forced most of the Giants to execute their run fits.
Crowder sees the pullers, reacts, and then realizes the RPO and drops too far towards the boundary, which opens up Marquise Brown. McKinney seemed a bit slow to react to Brown, who was wide open for about a second.
He started coming downhill and then stopped before realizing Jackson threw the football to Brown. It is not an egregious mistake, but one that may be cleaned up with more time on the football field. It also didn’t matter much because McKinney then made an aggressive tackle.
I think the Giants made a great decision when they selected McKinney in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft. He processes the game well, aggressively tackles, is poised in coverage, and puts himself into advantageous situations.
His development with Patrick Graham should be very fun to watch, and the experience will come in time.
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