DETROIT -- How much does Tracy Walker mean to this team?

Just consider the scene in the Lions’ locker room on Sunday, where the second-year safety was chosen -- over Matthew Stafford, over Kenny Golladay, over everybody -- to break down the team after a 31-26 win against the New York Giants at Ford Field.

“Hey man, hell of a win," Walker barked as his teammates huddled around him. "That’s the way to keep fighting, man. We just got to continue to build on this week, man, and continue to improve.”

There’s no doubt Walker’s stock is rising in Detroit, which is what made his knee injury so concerning.

He crumbled to the turf when he took some friendly fire from linebacker Christian Jones in the third quarter, and required the help of two trainers to get off the field. He went immediately to the locker room and was later ruled out.

Coach Matt Patricia said he wouldn’t have a substantive update on whether the injury is serious until Monday.

“I saw Tracy briefly as I was kind of making my rounds," Patricia said. "He said he was fine, and we’ll figure it out tomorrow, and I said, ‘Cool.’ He brought the team up after and everything like that. We’ll look at it tomorrow from that standpoint."

It’s important to note that while Walker said he was “fine,” that doesn’t mean he’s fine. In fact, Patricia’s quote reads a lot like the one he gave about Kerryon Johnson last week, and Johnson wound up landing on injured reserve with a knee injury.

Walker’s injury comes at a terrible time for Detroit, which just traded its other starting safety to Seattle. Quandre Diggs had some good years here, but his play had slipped and the Seahawks were offering a fifth-round pick in return.

Detroit accepted the trade in part because it believed its depth at safety was good enough to carry on without the captain, and Walker’s rise was central to that confidence. He was a third-round pick just last year, but was so good by the end of the season that Detroit decided to cut Glover Quin to make room for him in the starting lineup.

Walker hasn’t disappointed, either. In the first six games of the season, he had a team-high 50 tackles while playing a team-high 96% of the defensive snaps. He also had one interception, one forced fumble and four passes defended. He was the 20th-best safety in the game, according to ProFootballFocus, and was certainly playing better than Diggs.

With rookie Will Harris looking good too, the Lions made the difficult decision to part with Diggs. They rolled into the Giants game with Walker and Tavon Wilson in the starting lineup, and Harris playing a bunch off the bench.

But then Walker went down with an injury, and Wilson suffered one of his own late. That meant Harris and C.J. Moore, both rookies, were the only healthy safeties who finished the game. And that forced Miles Killebrew, a safety-turned-linebacker who hasn’t played a single snap of defense since 2017, to return to his old position to help get Detroit through the game.

Throw in the loss of star cornerback Darius Slay, who didn’t play because of a hamstring injury, and Detroit’s secondary was limping to the finish.

The Giants had some luck going at them, too. Rookie quarterback Daniel Jones had his most efficient game ever, completing 28 of 41 passes for 322 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions. But the Lions also forced him into some youthful mistakes, including a couple fumbles, one of which was returned for a touchdown by Devon Kennard.

Detroit’s defense may have bent, but for the first time in a while, it did not break, and Patricia was proud of the effort given what they endured to get through the game.

“I think the guys on the sideline did a really good job, and honestly, they did a good job all week in the back end just being calm, being settled,” Patricia said. "We made a lot of adjustments in the game. I would say we made some adjustments before that (Walker injury) happened and just had a lot of moving parts. There was a lot of personnel and positions and all of that stuff, and I think those guys handled that really well. It was good.”