There is something to keep in mind as the Giants contemplate whom to make a run at and whom to watch walk out the door this offseason.
Sometimes you know what you have and sometimes you do not.
This is salient when assessing what comes next with Xavier McKinney.
The fourth-year safety launched a preemptive strike on the day he and his teammates packed up their belongings, their season complete with six wins and 11 losses.
“I’m the most complete safety out there, and it’s about time for some respect to that, too, “ he proclaimed. “So, I definitely think I am the best safety in this league and I’ll continue to prove that.’’
It’s a statement that means McKinney wants to be paid commensurate with the NFL’s top safeties. That would be in the range of the Chargers’ Derwin James ($19 million per year), the Steelers’ Minkah Fitzpatrick ($18.2 million) and the Seahawks’ Jamal Adams ($17.5 million). The Falcons’ Jessie Bates ($16 million per year) and the Vikings’ Harrison Smith ($16 million) are in the same ballpark.
McKinney was on the field for 1,128 snaps during the 2023 season, which accounts for 100 percent of the snaps the Giants played on defense. Inside linebacker Bobby Okereke joined McKinney in this remarkable feat of endurance, durability and good fortune.
McKinney, whose 116 tackles was second on the team to Okereke’s 149, added one forced fumble, two fumble recoveries and three interceptions (two of which came in the season-ending 27-10 victory over the Eagles). He graded out as the fourth-best safety in the league, according to Pro Football Focus. It is doubtful the Giants had him graded in that stratosphere.
The original idea for this past season was to continue the starting safety pairing of McKinney and Julian Love. The Giants offered Love a deal averaging $7 million per year, but he wanted to see what he could get as a free agent.
It was not a bull market for him. The Seahawks offered a two-year deal worth $12 million. Love, a 2019 fourth-round draft pick from Notre Dame, brought that back to the Giants, but it was too late — they had moved on and their offer was off the table.
Love did not cash in, but he did just fine for himself. He was selected for his first Pro Bowl, an honor McKinney has yet to achieve. Sure, Love’s late-season brilliance in an upset victory over the Eagles — twice picking off Jalen Hurts, the second a brilliant leaping grab to seal the game — might have pushed him over the top in the voting.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s crazy,’’ Love said of the Pro Bowl selection. “You can hear it, you can think it, but that’s never on my mind, especially this year. It was never on my mind for a possibility. I was productive, I knew where I stacked up against everybody, but I just thought that it was one of those things that I don’t usually get. It was affirming for sure.’’
What this might affirm to the Giants is that they do not need to break the bank for McKinney at a position where most teams do not invest the most money to fill.
Love was extremely popular in the building during his four years with the Giants (a case can certainly be made he was more popular than McKinney with the coaching staff and the front office).
But Love was ranked as the No. 22 safety in the NFL this past season. It is likely that most teams view McKinney as having more upside. It is also likely most teams would rather pay a starting safety what Love gets, as opposed to what McKinney will want.
“I wasn’t a huge name in free agency I don’t think,’’ Love said, correctly.
McKinney will be a bigger name in free agency.
Where the Giants fit in is up for debate.
McKinney was never taken off the field by the defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, but Martindale stormed out of the building and is no longer with the Giants.
His replacement will have his own vision of what type of player he wants, which could lead to far more roster manipulation than if Martindale had remained. It is not likely that whoever takes over will look at what is left behind at safety — Jason Pinnock, Dane Belton and seldom-used Gervarrius Owens — and declare that position to be set.
If the Giants are hell-bent on keeping McKinney, they could put the franchise tag on him, which is estimated to be between $16 million and $17 million for a safety in 2024. That is not an expenditure on the salary cap the Giants are expected to take.
A long-term deal will be discussed, but it is unlikely the Giants will come up with an offer that will keep McKinney from entering the open market. If he does, the chances are good another team will be willing to pay him more than what the Giants deem as his value.
Love was not looking to leave. He was a team captain, well-liked by all and so comfortable in his surroundings that he was named the 2022 George Young/Ernie Accorsi Good Guy Award winner, presented annually to the player who demonstrates exceptional professionalism and availability to the beat writers who cover the Giants.
“I’m coming off being a captain, being the starting guy, playing almost 100 percent of the snaps last year, into a situation where I have two top-quality, high-character safeties [Jamal Adams and Quandre Diggs],’’ Love said. “I had to make a choice, ‘OK, do I want to be the man somewhere? Or do I want to be somewhere where I can win, I can grow, I can just learn from?’’
Love, 25, left money on the table, but landed in a good spot for himself and his career. McKinney, 24, will want it all — to be the man and get paid like it. He also wants to win. Those desires will probably result in him being an ex-Giants player this coming season.
Do something!
When a season is turning sideways there are often cries to make changes:
The head coach should take over the offensive play-calling.
Someone needs to be fired.
Someone needs to be demoted.
Make the backup quarterback the starter.
Do not just sit back and go with the status quo and hope things will improve.
For goodness’ sake, do something!
Well, sometimes bold actions work and sometimes they make a bad situation worse. That is what happened with the Eagles and what now looks like a knee-jerk move by head coach Nick Sirianni. After back-to-back losses to the 49ers and Cowboys dropped the Eagles from an NFL-best 10-1 to 10-3, Sirianni demoted his new defensive coordinator, Sean Desai, and promoted Matt Patricia into the defensive play-caller role.
Such moves, so late in the season, are rare and often do not have the desired effect. That is what happened to the Eagles.
They went 1-4 with Patricia — the former Lions head coach and Patriots defensive coordinator — running the defense and allowed 27.8 points a game. The ending was appropriately dismal, with Patricia’s unit giving up 426 yards to the Buccaneers — the 23rd-ranked offense in the regular season —- in an unsightly 32-9 playoff loss in Tampa. Patricia had no answers to thwart Baker Mayfield, who ripped the Eagles for 337 passing yards and three touchdowns.
Heck, Tyrod Taylor threw for 297 yards for the Giants in a 27-10 victory in Philadelphia in the regular-season finale.
You can be sure the Giants are monitoring what is going with the Eagles and Cowboys, two NFC East rivals that hit the skids in the playoffs.
While the Giants are in the process of replacing seven coaches on Brian Daboll’s staff, that upheaval might pale in comparison to the winds of change that are already sweeping through the Washington Commanders and might whip through Philly and Dallas (though Mike McCarthy is staying put), as well.
Asked and answered
Here are two questions that have come up recently that we will attempt to answer as accurately as possible:
Why were the Giants denied permission to talk to prospective special teams coordinator candidates?
A team has the right to deny permission for an interview with any of their coaches if the interview request is for a lateral move, like going from one special teams coordinator job to another with a different team.
In this case though, there is more to it.
The Giants sought interviews with the special teams coordinators of the Chargers, Panthers and Falcons. All three teams denied the requests. All three also had fired their head coaches. That scenario leaves the remaining coaching staffs in Los Angeles, Charlotte and Atlanta in limbo.
A new head coach might want to keep members of the existing staff. More likely, he will want to fill the staff mostly with his own hires. So, yes, a team undergoing a coaching search has the right to block its staff from outside interviews, but it is not exactly a classy way of going about its business.
Why don’t the Giants inquire about bringing back Bill Belichick?
It is not every day that a future first-ballot Hall of Fame head coach becomes available to be hired. So, at the very least a discussion needs to take place with Belichick being a free agent.
He loved his time with the Giants in the glory days with Bill Parcells, running the special teams, coaching linebackers and then calling the defense for a franchise that won two Super Bowls. Belichick holds the Giants in high regard, but that does not mean a reunion is going to happen.
The Giants have a head coach and they also have a general manager, Joe Schoen. They have no interest in altering their time-tested power structure to accommodate someone such as Belichick, who will want more authority than most head coaches.