Micah McFadden

From 5th-round pick to Giants' starting MIKE — then a 2025 lost to IR after Week 1.

Indiana product, 5th-round pick in 2022. McFadden barely played as a rookie (48 combined tackles in a rotational role), then broke through in 2023 with 93 tackles in 16 games. 2024 looked like another step — 3 sacks, 6 QB hits, 94 tackles — but the 2025 season ended almost immediately.

After playing Week 1, McFadden landed on Reserve status from Week 2 onward and hasn't returned. The 4 participation snaps this year are all that exist on his 2025 ledger.

6 career sacks — 5th-most among Giants LBs since 2022, behind only Burns, Thibodeaux, Ojulari, and Ward.

The four LBs ahead of him are all premium edge rushers — McFadden is an off-ball MIKE getting his sacks on green-dog blitzes and stunt loops up the middle. Sliding into the top 5 on that list from an off-ball role is a real value mark for a Day-3 pick.

2024 peak: 3 sacks, 8 TFL, 1 FF, 1 FR — career-best line right before the IR year.

His Week 14 line of 5 tackles for loss in a single game is the kind of single-game splash that veteran MIKE LBs rarely produce. He layered it onto a season that already had 3.0 sacks, 6 QB hits, and a forced-fumble-and-recovery double-dip in Week 6.

That 2024 production curve is what made the 2025 IR designation so costly — he was trending into a contract year, not out of one.

Equal solo and assisted tackles in 2024 (47/47) — a near-perfect 50/50 split, rare for a stack LB.

Stack LBs usually trend solo-heavy (the position is responsible for cleanup tackles). McFadden's 2024 line of 47 solo + 47 assisted is unusually balanced — it suggests Wink Martindale's defense often had two LBs converging at the ball, with McFadden frequently arriving second.

The 2023 split (55 solo / 38 assisted) was more conventional. The 2024 shift mirrors the Giants' move toward two-LB box looks in passing situations.