Giants’ injury news: Xavier McKinney, David Mayo suffer significant injuries

The New York Giants announced Tuesday they have suffered a pair of significant injuries, both to defensive players likely to be heavily counted upon. Second-round pick Xavier McKinney has suffered a fractured foot and linebacker David Mayo has a torn meniscus.

McKinney, the 36th overall pick out of Alabama, has suffered a fracture to his left foot. He is scheduled to undergo surgery later this afternoon at Hospital for Special Surgery. Foot specialist Dr. Martin O’Malley will perform the procedure.

Mike Garafolo is reporting that McKinney has a fracture of the fifth metatarsal. Garafolo is estimate a two- to three-month recovery period for McKinney.

There is no word on when McKinney suffered the injury. The first alarm with McKinney came last Friday when he did not participate in the team’s first intra-squad scrimmage. McKinney was expected to join Jabrill Peppers as the Giants’ starting safeties. Without McKinney, that job will likely fall to second-year man Julian Love.

Peppers, Love and McKinney were expected to be on the field together a high percentage of the time. That option no longer exists.

“Xavier’s a guy for us who was making a tremendous amount of improvement,” said head coach Joe Judge. “We’re still looking forward to getting him back out there on the field.”

Judge said he wouldn’t know what type of time table McKinney had for recovery until after his surgery.

Mayo had a career year in 2019, which was his fifth season in the league. He had career highs in starts (13), tackles (82) and had the only two sacks of his career.

Mayo was competing with Devante Downs and Ryan Connelly for a starting inside linebacker spot next to Blake Martinez. Mayo has a torn meniscus in his left knee and is scheduled to undergo surgery on Thursday.

The Giants are currently thin at inside linebacker as both Connelly and Downs have missed some practice time recently. That could open up opportunities for seventh-round picks T.J. Brunson and Tae Crowder.