Joe Schoen’s belief in positional value on display at this position
The New York Giants’ personnel decisions at safety have certainly engendered controversy in the fan base. Has GM Joe Schoen been right or wrong in how he has approached the position?
Current roster: Jason Pinnock, Tyler Nubin, Dane Belton, Anthony Johnson
Players drafted since 2022: Dane Belton (Round 4, No. 114, 2022) | Gervarrius Owens (Round 7, No. 254, 2023) | Tyler Nubin (Round 2, No. 47, 2024)
Biggest free agent signing: Jason Pinnock (2022 waiver claim)
Biggest losses: Xavier McKinney, Julian Love
What they lost
The Giants lost Julian Love to the Seattle Seahawks in free agency before the 2023 season. It wasn’t because they didn’t try to keep him.
Love was a full-time starter for the Giants for the first time in four years in 2022, and played extremely well. He signed a two-year, $12 million deal with Seattle. Reporting from The Athletic indicated that the Giants offered love more than that during the 2022 season bye week. Love, thinking he would be able to find an even more lucrative offer in free agency, turned it down.
When the Seahawks made their offer to Love, the Giants — walking a tight financial line as they tried to recover from a salary cap mess — couldn’t match. They had already allocated that money to wide receiver Darius Slayton.
Schoen and the Giants made a conscious decision not to get into a bidding war for Xavier McKinney. If you watched ‘Hard Knocks’ you know that Schoen, a positional value disciple, was shocked that the Green Bay Packers gave McKinney $67.5 million over four years, with the average annual value at $16.75 million. That made McKinney the game’s fourth-highest paid safety.
What they gained
Credit the Giants’ pro personnel department with identifying a mistake made by the New York Jets when they tried to pass Jason Pinnock through waivers to their practice squad in 2022. The Giants claimed him, and Pinnock — while not quite as good this season as he was in 2023 — has filled the spot vacated by Love.
The Giants drafted 23-year-old Tyler Nubin in Round 2 to replace the 26-year-old McKinney. Called the ‘alpha of alphas” by assistant GM Brandon Brown, it is easy to see why the Giants liked Nubin coming out of Minnesota. He has played 99% of the defensive snaps. Get around him and the leadership traits that will see him grow into a core defensive player, if he isn’t already, are apparent. The ball-hawking skills that saw him intercept 13 passes as a collegian haven’t shown up yet in the NFL, but there is a lot to like.
The verdict
McKinney, because he already has a career-high six interceptions, is making the Giants look bad for not trying harder to retain him.
The view here, though, is that McKinney’s career shows that what he is doing is not sustainable. A 2020 second-round pick by the Giants, McKinney had five interceptions in his second season. In 32 games over his other three seasons in New York he had four.
Whether you consider it apples-to-apples or not, the Giants applied the money they did not give to McKinney to making the Brian Burns trade. If you believe pass rush or front seven play is more important to a defense than safety play — if you buy the commonly held positional value theory held by much of the NFL — that’s a proper allocation of resources.
Adding a player like Nubin, who should continue to improve over the next few seasons, softens the blow of losing McKinney. Though it would be nice if someone in the Giants’ secondary, which has not had an interception yet this season, would pick off a pass occasionally.
What type of resources do the Giants need to put into the position going forward?
That depends on whether or not they are able to keep Pinnock, a 25-year-old free-agent-to-be who should have options in free agency. Lose him and the Giants will have a big hole to fill.
The Giants could also use additional depth. Dane Belton, a 2022 fourth-round pick, has shown some ability to find the football with two interceptions and four fumble recoveries. What he hasn’t shown is the ability to be trusted down-in and down-out when he has been called upon. The Giants need to keep churning the middle to bottom of the draft, and the later tiers of free agency or the waiver wire, for depth.
