How Giants Safety Xavier McKinney is Turning Football into an Art

In every play, Xavier McKinney sees shapes, angles, and other artistic elements that the budding graphic designer puts to good use in stopping the offense.

Author:
Patricia Traina
Publish date:
Aug 5, 2022 1:28 PM EDT

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New York Giants

The New York Giants defensive huddle breaks, and safety Xavier McKinney moves to his assigned spot in the formation, his eyes never leaving the other side of the field.

With shifts and motions designed to confuse the defense, McKinney, for the first time in his young NFL career, is tasked with ensuring all his defensive teammates are in the right position to counter whatever diabolical strategy the offense has planned.

As he stares down what's unfolding before him, the picture starts to clarify for the 22-year-old McKinney as he processes the alignment's shapes, angles, and other geometric signs that offer hints on how he needs to make a defensive stop.

This is how McKinney's mind has worked on the football field, dating back to his days at Alabama. So it was not a surprise to learn that McKinney, who has been trying to make dissecting Xs and Os as they unfold into an art form, has a passion for another kind of art he pursues in his spare time.

McKinney is an aspiring illustrator and graphic designer who also has an eye for fashion. He first developed that passion for art during high school when he would fill his free time by putting his ideas down on paper.

When McKinney decided to start getting tattoos, instead of choosing designs from a catalog, McKinney, recognizing his uniqueness as an individual, took the initiative. So far, he has designed all but one of his various body artworks.

"I've always been a visionary," McKinney told Giants Country this week. "I've always been a person that has a whole bunch of thoughts--a lot of different experiences that I went through throughout my life growing up. So that's where they came from, and I pride myself on being a creator."

McKinney initially hoped to major in art at Alabama, but because of scheduling conflicts with classes and football practices, he went in a different direction. He considered minoring in art, but in the end, he realized that he could still work on that craft as his schedule permitted while optimizing his opportunities to pursue a football career at Alabama.

His favorite tattoo is the design on his back which pays homage to his time with the Crimson Tide.

"That was something that meant a lot to me," McKinney said of his college experience that he was only too happy to permanently immortalize on his body. "Alabama was a place where I started my collegiate career. It was something that really molded me into the man that I am today, and I'm truly grateful."

Initially, McKinney had a different design concept in mind for the art, but after sketching it out, he changed it up.

"When I first started creating it, I had the whole stadium--the lights and everything," he said. "I changed it up a little bit just because I felt like the stadium would've been a whole bunch, and I replaced that with the elephant and stuff like that. It was great to start the process of just creating that piece. It was fun."

When McKinney learned he was headed to New York, he was thrilled not only to pursue his NFL dream with one of the oldest franchises in the league but also to be so close to the countless museums and art galleries and one of the biggest fashion markets in the world. Whenever he has free time, he will head to a museum or an art gallery to find inspiration and admire the different methods used to create timeless artwork.

He has also been working on a concept for a future piece of body art to honor his new chapter in New York, something he anticipates he'll finish next off-season. And he is currently building his contacts in the fashion world, as he aspires to one day have his own fashion line.

Right now, McKinney's focus is squarely on football, where starting this year, he'll be applying his ability to make sense of shapes, figures, and alignments on the gridiron to smart calls aimed at helping the Giants defense become a masterpiece.

"I think it does correlate big time," McKinney said of his drawing and football. "As I said, I'm a visionary, so seeing different possibilities that could happen based on what we're planned, just having different outcomes.

"I'll be in the meeting room and always ask, 'Well, what if they do this?' So I think that helps with the football aspect--and that's pretty much how it's, how it's always been for me."

Listen to the entire interview with Xavier McKinney on the LockedOn Giants podcast.