Kool-Aid McKinstry expected to play Week One after suffering preseason injury

New Orleans Saints cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry suffered an injury in a preseason game on Sunday, but it’s not too serious. According to NFL insider Jordan Schultz, McKinstry avoided a significant knee injury during the game, and the team believes he has a good chance to play in the season opener against the Carolina Panthers.

McKinstry suffered the knee injury early in the first quarter after he collided with San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Trent Taylor. He went to the medical tent before running on the sideline. The former Alabama Crimson Tide cornerback then headed to the locker room for further evaluation.

“He has a knee injury, I think we avoided anything serious,” Saints head coach Dennis Allen told reporters after the game on Sunday, per Saints Wire. “Now, what kind of time we are looking at, I really have no idea. But I think we escaped the game, at least on initial report, without any major injuries.”

The Saints selected McKinstry in the second round of this year’s NFL Draft. During the NFL Scouting Combine, the league discovered that McKinstry had a Jones fracture in his right foot.

“The coaches do a good job of explaining everything,” McKinstry said at the time. “I done seen a lot of this stuff just by me playing at Alabama, so just kind of using different words and putting them all together to be the same things.

“They’ve been allowing me to go and do walk-throughs. Just walk through and see it all, to move around with the guys. There’s a guy in front of me – going behind him and walking through the plays. I’m still getting mental reps and taking advantage of them.”

Dennis Allen says Kool-Aid McKinstry is ‘highly intelligent’

The Saints believe McKinstry can make a major impact very quickly. “I feel really good about getting Kool-Aid,” Allen said after they drafted McKinstry. “I think he’s a really good player, highly intelligent, highly instinctual, has shown the ability to play press coverage. He can play outside. We feel like he can go inside and play inside the nickel, so there’s some versatility that he can play with. And so we really like the player and felt like getting him at that value was the right place to get him.”

McKinstry had a strong career at Alabama as he was named to the All-SEC First Team twice and the All-America First Team in 2023. During the 2023 season, the Alabama native recorded 32 tackles, two tackles for loss and seven pass breakups.