The Green Bay Packers signed free-agent safety Xavier McKinney to a four-year, $67 million contract during the offseason. So far, the NFL team likes the return on its investment.
“He’s got the two picks in two games, but it’s more than that,” Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley said on Thursday. “He’s coming up in run support. He’s helping some of the young guys in their checks. He’s playing next to a rookie (Javon Bullard), who I also think is off to a pretty good start. And he’s kind of being the captain back there, the quarterback there, and he’s done a really nice job at that.
“But that’s exactly what I expected. He’s a great football player. He can tackle, he can cover, he can play in deep zones. You know, we blitzed him last game, too, so he’s a very versatile player, and I think he’s off to really, really good start. I’m very, very happy that he’s here.”
McKinney came to Green Bay after four seasons with the New York Giants.
“Going into this year, my mindset was completely different from all the others,” McKinney said during an appearance on FanDuel TV’s “Up and Adams” on Friday, “and I’ve learned so much already from this coaching staff. They’ve taught me a lot, just growing my football mind, and I’ve been able to grow on my own football-wise. It’s been good. Just kind of in a different mindset, and I kind of know the job that needs to be done, and I’m trying to accomplish that. …
“I’m just super locked-in, super focused. I want to win. Obviously, you got to take it game-by-game and day-by-day, but I play to win the big one. I didn’t come here just to make the playoffs. That’s not really my goal. I got bigger goals and bigger dreams, and I know in able to do that, I have to play at a high level at my position and do my individual job and, ultimately, that helps us as a team, as a defense, so just trying to do that. Help the guys around me, make guys around me play better, and it’s been going well.”
McKinney and Buffalo Bills cornerback Ja’Marcus Ingram are the only players with two interceptions two games into the 2024 NFL season. Green Bay leads the NFL with five interceptions. Last season, only one NFL team had fewer interceptions than the Packers’ seven.
“We want that to be a part of the story every Sunday or every time whenever we play,” McKinney said on Wednesday. “But for us, it’s just to go out there, execute and just do our jobs, read our keys and execute to the best of our ability. And, hopefully, obviously, we want to always get the ball, so, hopefully, we can keep that going on Sunday. But for us, our main focus is to just execute the calls by Haf, whatever he calls, and go out there and play with confidence and play with great effort.”
Green Bay plays the Tennessee Titans at noon CDT Sunday at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee.
While the Packers are 1-1, the Titans are 0-2, even though Tennessee’s defense has yielded the fewest yards in the NFL in 2024. But the Titans have the worst turnover margin in the league at minus-4 and have lost three interceptions and two fumbles.
“We’ve seen the turnovers that they’ve made,” McKinney said. “But every team doesn’t make the same mistakes over and over again. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don’t. But we can’t go in with mindset thinking that they’re going to go into Sunday and make the same mistakes they’ve made before, so we know that they’re going to improve just how we improve each and every week. There’s things that they’ve got to work on just how there’s things that we’ve got to work on, so it’s a vice-versa type of thing.
“But, obviously, when you see that, you know that there’s going to be some opportunity in the game, and when that comes, we’ve just got to make sure that we do a great job of seizing that moment.”
Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love sustained a knee injury with six seconds remaining in the Packers’ 34-29 season-opening loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sept. 6. Green Bay defeated the Indianapolis Colts 16-10 on Sunday with Malik Willis filling in at quarterback, even though he joined the team in a trade after the end of the preseason.
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Love has practiced on a limited basis this week, and the Packers intend to take down to the last minute the decision on their quarterback against the Titans.
McKinney and Willis played against each other in the 2018 Iron Bowl — McKinney with Alabama and Willis with Auburn. But they were high-school teammates in Roswell, Georgia.
“I know what he’s made of,” McKinney said. “Obviously, I grew up with him pretty much, and I played with him in high school, got to watch him in college, got to watch him when he got to the pros. But he’s a special player, man. He’s done a great job of coming in and being a true professional and really honing in on his job and knowing that he has a job to do. And he prepares like a starter.
“Last week when he was out there, I talked to him, and I was just like, ‘Bro, we’re behind you, and we’re with you. Whatever you do, we’re with you 100 percent of the way.’ Obviously, he knows that from me. We’ve been doing this for a long time, so it’s just great to have him back on the team. It brings back old days when we was in high school, and he’s done a great job.”
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
