The Giants won 12-7 in Tennessee on Sunday and lost their defense doing it. Brian Burns tore the ACL in his right knee in the fourth quarter, grabbing at it while rushing the passer before needing help off the field. Head coach John Harbaugh confirmed the diagnosis Monday. Burns needs season-ending surgery.
He Should Not Have Been Out There
Burns sprained his left ankle against the Rams in Week 2 and was initially expected to miss the Tennessee game. He played anyway. A different knee gave out instead, so there is no direct line between the ankle and the ACL, but it is a hard thing for a 2-1 team to look back on.
This is the risk every team takes with a star who wants to play through something. Most of the time it works out. This time New York got three quarters of production and a trip to the operating room.
The Sack Numbers Need Context
Burns had no sacks in three games this season, along with four tackles and a team-leading four pressures. Taken alone that looks like a slow start worth shrugging at.
Look at last year instead. Burns had 16.5 sacks in 2025, a career high that ranked second in the entire NFL behind only Myles Garrett. Three games of bad luck on finishing plays does not undo that. The pressures said he was still winning his matchups.
He had also started every game for the Giants since arriving in the 2024 trade from Carolina, which is why Harbaugh called this what it was.
Harbaugh Did Not Spin It
“We’re not the only team that faces losses or will face losses,” Harbaugh said. “The fact that we lost our quarterback one week and probably our top defensive player, you might say, the next week is shocking.”
Then the coaching part: “But you’ve got to overcome the shock, and you’ve got to get ready to play the next game and find a way to win the next game.”
And the human part, which is the line that will stick: “But I feel bad for Brian more than anything, my heart breaks for him that way.”
Abdul Carter, the 2025 first-round pick who now carries more of the rush, kept it simple before the news landed. “Everybody knows what Burns brings to the team. I’m hoping it’s nothing too bad.”
The Money Is Not the Problem
Burns is 28 and in year three of a five-year, $141 million contract signed in March 2024, with $87.5 million guaranteed and a $28.2 million average. That deal runs through 2028.
That is actually the one piece of good news. He is young enough and signed long enough that this is a lost season rather than a lost investment. There is a realistic path to him being ready for Week 1 of 2027.
Two Weeks, Two Franchise Players
Harbaugh’s reference to losing a quarterback is the other half of this. Jaxson Dart suffered a left knee injury in Week 2 that required season-ending surgery, which is why New York went out and traded for a quarterback before Burns even got hurt.
Now Kayvon Thibodeaux moves into a full-time edge role opposite Carter, and a defense that was the entire reason this team sat at 2-1 has to hold up without its best player.
Harbaugh took this job in January and has lost his starting quarterback and his best defender inside three weeks. The Giants are still 2-1. Whether that survives October is a different question.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.