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Jun 17, 2025; East Rutherford, NJ, USA; New York Giants safety Tyler Nubin (27) participates in a drill during minicamp at Quest Diagnostics Training Center. John Jones-Imagn Images

NY Giants Safety Tyler Nubin Named Breakout Candidate by PFN

Originally posted on New York Giants on SI
By Stephen Lebitsch | Last updated Jul 15, 2025 10:58 PM ET

With the New York Giants welcoming back their collection of players to 1925 Giants Drive for the start of training camp next week, a lot of attention will be paid towards how the organization’s newest pieces look in their first taste of action with the shoulder pads on.

However, there are just as many storylines to potentially come from the incumbent members of the locker room.

Some of them, including incoming second-year safety Tyler Nubin, had pretty commendable years in 2024 despite another onslaught of injuries and poor performances from the entire team in their forgettable 3-14 season.

Nubin, the Giants’ second-round pick out of Minnesota in the 2024 draft, was forced into filling the abandoned free safety role left by the departure of Xavier McKinney to Green Bay.

McKinney was both a leader and high-volume producer in the Giants' defense for years, making his successor’s new job a hefty one even for one of the best players in college football.

Still, the 24-year-old Nubin stepped up and provided some of the most elite play by any Giants player in the first half of the season before an ankle ailment claimed the final weeks of his NFL debut. As he returns for his second rodeo, Pro Football Network has hope that he’ll pick up right where he left off after 13 games last fall.

The outlet just named Nubin as its choice from the Giants' roster to become a breakout playerahead of the 2025 season's kickoff.

“Nubin’s instincts and tackling ability helped stabilize a defense among the league’s better units for much of the year before fading down the stretch,” the analysis said.

“With the departure of Xavier McKinney, who earned All-Pro honors in Green Bay, the Giants are looking to Nubin to step into a leadership role in his second season.

“Nubin showed flashes of high-level play as a rookie and now has the opportunity to build on that foundation. If he continues to develop, he could become the next cornerstone of the Giants’ defense and a key figure in their secondary for years to come.”

Even before one could start treating him like a leader in the Giants' defensive huddle, Nubin quickly made his presence felt as one of the fastest producers for the team.

He finished second on the Giants’ leaderboard with 98 total tackles and added one forced fumble despite missing four games on the back end of the season.

Not only was he pacing the Giants in tackles during that span, including seven contests with at least eight stops and a stretch of three straight games with 12, he also made slowing down the run as a deep-level option look effortless.

Nubin held the second-highest run defense grade in the Giants' secondary (76.0) and did a solid job at wrapping up opponents with a 10.9% missed tackle rate.

In coverage, Nubin was just as efficient in limiting damage against vertically gifted pass catchers, never allowing more than four receptions for 70 yards and zero touchdowns in all of his starts, which was impressive for a young man who will be tested by quality receivers once again this season.

In essence, Nubin was one of Joe Schoen’s most recent positive draft picks, who was akin to the glue holding much of the Giants’ defensive success early in the year together.

As his ankle injury and others started to pile up, the Giants saw their coverage metrics drop dramatically, and their ability to wrap up on the ground stumbled to the 22nd worst unit in football.

That makes his return to the gridiron this summer one of the most valuable reunions of all the incumbent players on New York’s roster, and it’ll be interesting to see how much of a role he’ll maintain as Jevon Holland joins the top of the position group.

The veteran in Holland was one of the franchise’s notable free agent acquisitions this offseason, who brings a much more accomplished resume of creating pressure and getting his hands on the football that the Giants had lacked for most of last fall.

He could be asked to handle a lot more of the late down converge snaps when the defense kicks the heat up a notch, which might not put Nubin in as great a position to be an enforcer in the deep field.

On the other hand, we know that Shane Bowen loves to deploy his underneath defenders as a unique response to slowing down the game in the trenches. While Dru Phillips tended to lead in that role in 2024, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Nubin get some reps down there as he sparsely did in his rookie campaign.

Either way, it’s not absurd to characterize Nubin as a potential breakout player across the league, as he was on schedule to become the first safety to lead the Giants in total production since McKinney left the organization two years ago.

As PFN mentioned, his high-level ball instincts and fundamentals make him one of the most undervalued players in the Giants' locker room, as the team seeks its defense to be the calling card for competing with the elite offenses on its schedule. The offense is the bigger question mark, but its complement is expected to create problems in the passing game that was once a launch pad.

If those things stay on par in 2025, Nubin will have a shot to surpass his introductory stats and officially earn that leadership patch on his chest that is reserved for the biggest producers on the field.