Giants take Minnesota safety Tyler Nubin in NFL Draft second round after letting Xavier McKinney walk to Green Bay

Joe Schoen continued to replace players he lost in free agency on day two of the 2024 NFL Draft.

The Giants GM selected Minnesota safety Tyler Nubin at No. 47 overall in the second round after letting Xavier McKinney walk to the Green Bay Packers in free agency this March.

That followed Thursday’s first round selection of LSU wide receiver Malik Nabers, which added a new No. 1 playmaker to an offense that lost Saquon Barkley to the Philadelphia Eagles on the open market, as well.

Nubin, who turns 23 in June, played 55 games with 43 starts across five seasons for the Golden Gophers. The second-team All-American’s 13 career interceptions were the most in program history.

And he wore his heart on his sleeve Friday night.

“Oh man, I’ve been crying for the last 35 minutes,” Nubin said on a conference call. “Not even thinking about the work I put in. It’s the work everyone around me put in. My parents have been working so hard for me all my life. There are so many people and so many sacrifices that were made leading up to this moment. It all came out. That’s what it was.”

Nubin was a four-year starter at Minnesota, and his stats were extremely consistent from 2021-2023 after the pandemic-shortened 2020 year:

He made between 52 and 55 tackles in all three seasons from 2021-23. He recorded between five to nine passes defended each year. And he intercepted three to five balls each season, including a career-high five in his final year.

“I’m an everything player,” Nubin said. “I feel like I’m a guy that can do it all on the field. I like to call myself a Swiss-Army knife. I can move around everywhere. I can blitz. I can come down and hit in the box. I can play over top. So anywhere on the field I’m comfortable.”

Nubin, a former Minnesota teammate of Giants center John Michael Schmitz and linebacker Carter Coughlin, said he had arthroscopic knee surgery at the end of this past season but had a private workout during the pre-draft process with Giants safeties coach Mike Treier and assistant GM Brandon Brown.

“I played like six games on a torn meniscus last year, got it scoped at the end of the season,” he said. “I wouldn’t do anything differently than what I did, because I wanted to compete.”

Schoen has let a starting safety walk in free agency in consecutive offseasons, with Julian Love going to the Seattle Seahawks in 2023 and McKinney leaving for Green Bay this spring. Nubin’s rookie contract is dramatically cheaper, although the GM used a significant NFL Draft asset to acquire him.

Schoen traded away the Giants’ original second-round pick at No. 39 overall to the Carolina Panthers to acquire pass rusher Brian Burns in March. But he still had the No. 47 overall pick, which he acquired in last fall’s Leonard Williams trade to Seattle, to take Nubin.

On Friday night, the Panthers interestingly traded over the Giants to the No. 46 slot at the last minute to select Texas running back Jonathon Brooks. It’s not clear if Carolina did that because they believed New York was going to take the Longhorns’ bell cow back.

A ton of defensive tackles and corners already had come off the board in the early second round at other Giants positions of need. And they opted not to take a quarterback at No. 47, even after trying to trade up on Thursday night for North Carolina QB Drake Maye.

So Schoen took Nubin, who projects as a deep-half starter alongside Jason Pinnock, with Dane Belton and veteran signing Jalen Mills in the mix.