Giants place LB Kyler Fackrell on IR with calf injury

The Giants might be without quarterback Daniel Jones for a little bit, and it turns out Jones wasn’t the only significant player to go down during their win over the Bengals. The team has placed linebacker Kyler Fackrell on injured reserve with a calf injury, they announced Tuesday.

That means Fackrell will need to miss at least the next three games as the Giants make their push for the NFC East title. He’s played a big role in New York’s revitalized defense, appearing in all 11 games while starting eight and playing over 76 percent of the defensive snaps. He has three sacks on the year, tied for second-most on the team behind only Leonard Williams. The Utah State product landed a one-year, $4.6M deal from Big Blue this offseason.

He entered the league as a third-round pick of the Packers in 2016 and was mostly quiet his first couple of years. He came out of nowhere in 2018 to have a breakout season and rack up 10.5 sacks, although he came back down to earth in 2019 with only one.

In addition to his three sacks this year, he also has 31 tackles, a forced fumble, two passes defended and an interception that he returned for a touchdown. This is a big loss moving forward for a team with little margin for error.