GREEN BAY — In the span of two years, Brian Gutekunst has taken the Green Bay Packers safety position from the most problematic depth chart on the roster to the best.
In case you’d forgotten where the Packers were at safety before signing Xavier McKinney in free agency and drafting Evan Williams, Javon Bullard and Kitan Oladapo, let’s rewind to the 2023 season.
Gutekunst did everything he could to remake the position. Already on the hook for the fully guaranteed $7.9 million fifth-year option for 2019 first-round pick Darnell Savage, which turned out to be ill advised. But he’d also tried to fill the spot alongside Savage with low-cost veterans (Rudy Ford, Jonathan Owens, Tarvarius Moore), a rookie seventh-round draft pick (Anthony Johnson) and an undrafted rookie free agent (Benny Sapp III).
After the season, Gutekunst decided to start over. He signed McKinney to a four-year, $68 million free-agent deal, drafted Bullard (second round), Williams (fourth round) and Oladapo (fifth round) and — voila! — what was once a position of weakness is the strongest, at least on defense and perhaps on the entire roster.
McKinney was a first-team All-Pro in 2024 and a second-team All-Pro last season, and he and Williams make up one of the best safety tandems in all of football — according to, no lie, Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, who doesn’t like saying anything nice about the archrival Packers.
Bullard, meanwhile, came on strong last season as the fifth defensive back in the team’s nickel package, lining up in the slot and setting himself up for a breakout 2026 season as one of the defense’s impact players and leaders.
And while Oladapo has played only 136 regular-season defensive snaps in his first two NFL seasons, he’s a core special teams player and likely would see more action on defense on a team with fewer top-flight safeties in front of him on the depth chart.
Even more interesting is how the Packers’ depth at the position lines up perfectly with one of new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon’s core tenets: He loves to have three safeties on the field simultaneously.
“I think [Gannon] did a lot of creative things,” Gutekunst said of the three-safety looks he deployed as the Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator and the Arizona Cardinals head coach. “It’s really going to be adjusted to what we have with Evan, McKinney and ‘Bull.’
“‘Bull’ plays the nickel, but he was a safety by trade coming out of Georgia. We had a lot of three-safety looks for the majority of the season last year. So I think you’ll definitely see some of that moving forward.”
For McKinney, seeing Williams and Bullard elevate their games last season — while knowing how much improvement both players still have in front of them — already has him excited for what comes next.
“[Their growth] has helped our defense out tremendously. And it’s given, the guys in the back end — safeties, the DBs as a unit — the ability to be able to move in different places, and play in different spots,” McKinney explained. “It gives freedom for everybody else. It gives me more freedom to be able to move around. And so we love to see it.”
Packers depth chart
29 Xavier McKinney 6-0 201 26 7 Alabama
33 Evan Williams 5-11 200 24 3 Oregon
7 Javon Bullard 5-10 198 23 3 Georgia
27 Kitan Oladapo 6-2 216 25 3 Oregon State
37 Johnathan Baldwin 6-0 190 23 1 UNLV
41 Mark Perry 6-0 211 24 1 TCU
Best in class | Caleb Downs, Ohio State.
The 21-year-old Downs, whose father Gary played in the NFL, is a third-year junior who played one season at Alabama before transferring to Ohio State following Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban’s retirement. In his two seasons for the Buckeyes, he was a unanimous all-American both years and registered four interceptions, 11 pass breakups and 1.5 sacks.
In defensive coordinator Matt Patricia’s system, he played all over the back end and should be able to do the same at the next level.
“I feel like I have a lot of versatility to be able to be used in a different system in a lot of different ways,” Downs said at the NFL scouting combine. “So whatever they feel like that’s the best place for me to play, if that opportunity comes up, that would be awesome.
“I mean, I feel confident every time I step on the field, so if I walked on the field and thought anybody was better than me, that’s not true.”
Next men up | Dillon Thieneman, Oregon; Emmanuel McNeil-Warren, Toledo; Keionte Scott, Miami; A.J. Haulcy, LSU; Zakee Wheatley, Penn State.
Pick to click | Jacob Thomas, James Madison.
A walk-on who wound up playing in 50 career games and earning All-Sun Belt honors twice, the 6-foot, 215-pound Thomas was a team captain on the Dukes’ College Football Playoff team last season, when he recorded 71 tackles, two sacks, a forced fumble, two interceptions and seven pass breakups.
He didn’t get invited to the annual NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis in February but ran a 4.45-seconds 40-yard dash at his on-campus pro day and was one of the 30 players the Packers brought in for pre-draft visits.
Projected as a late Day 3 pick or undrafted free agent, Thomas certainly intrigued the Packers enough to use one of their 30 allotted visits on him.
“If you just keep putting your head down, keep working and keep grinding and stay where your feet are, you are bound to do big things,” Thomas said at his pro day. “It was [a matter of me] just trying to find who I was and what I wanted to do at JMU, me trying to prove myself.
“It was really just [about] trying as hard as possible as I can at everything I can.”
History lesson | It’s been 15 years since the Packers lost their star safety Nick Collins — a player then-head coach Mike McCarthy believed was on a Pro Football Hall of Fame trajectory — to a career-ending neck injury. And try as the might, they couldn’t find themselves a commensurate replacement — until Gutekunst signed McKinney in March 2024.
Gutekunst’s predecessor, Ted Thompson used his 2014 and 2015 first-round picks on college safeties: Alabama’s Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and Arizona State’s Damarious Randall. Randall, who moved to cornerback as a pro, was a bust. Clinton-Dix, meanwhile, made a Pro Bowl but was traded before the end of his rookie contract. Thompson also used a second-round pick on North Carolina State’s Josh Jones in 2017, but Jones flamed out quickly, too.
Gutekunst took over in 2018 and used the second of his two first-rounders a year later on Savage, who was better during his first two NFL seasons playing in Mike Pettine’s scheme than he was in his last three in Joe Barry’s system. Since leaving Green Bay, Savage has bounced around to the Jacksonville Jaguars, Washington Commanders and Buffalo Bills. This spring he signed a one-year, minimum-salary $1.488 million deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
PACKERS 2026 NFL DRAFT PREVIEW SCHEDULE
Sunday, April 12 — QUARTERBACKS
Monday, April 13 — RUNNING BACKS
Tuesday, April 14 — WIDE RECEIVERS
Wednesday, April 15 — TIGHT ENDS
Thursday, April 16 — OFFENSIVE LINEMEN
Friday, April 17 — DEFENSIVE LINEMEN
Saturday, April 18 — EDGE RUSHERS
Sunday, April 19 — LINEBACKERS
Monday, April 20 — CORNERBACKS
Tuesday, April 21 — SAFETIES
Wednesday, April 22 — SPECIALISTS
Thursday, April 23 — DRAFT DAY PREVIEW
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