GREEN BAY — As Omar Brown made his way to the sideline after the third interception of his magical night, Xavier McKinney was waiting for him. 

The Green Bay Packers first-team All-Pro safety wanted his protégé to enjoy the adulation and his accomplishment, of course. His three INTs, in front of a crowd of 59,175 at Lambeau Field, even in a practice, had to be the greatest moment of Brown’s football life to date.

But McKinney also didn’t want Brown to get too swept up in his moment, either. So what immediately followed his congratulatory hug from McKinney were important words of advice.

“Just keep balling, just keep being consistent,” Brown said McKinney told him. “We’ve still got a long camp ahead of us, got a preseason game coming up. So really, just keep stacking days. Keep balling. Keep being consistent.”

Let’s be clear: McKinney’s No. 1 job is to continue to play at an elite level, to replicate his remarkable first season in Green Bay, in which he had a career-high eight interceptions (second most in the NFL, and the most by a Packers player since Pro Football Hall of Famer Charles Woodson was the 2009 NFL defensive player of the year) and also led the team in pass break-ups (11) while adding 85 tackles, a sack and two tackles for loss on his way to All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors.

“He obviously has a year with us [to raise] the comfort level. He is an extension of the coaching staff out there,” head coach Matt LaFleur explained. “I mean, he really has a great grasp of what we’re trying to get accomplished. He understands the ‘why’ behind what we’re doing. I think he’s really evolved as a communicator and is better in that regard and he continues to take steps as a leader, not only on the defense, but our football team.”

And that’s the role McKinney is focusing on. It’s not just his job to lead the defensive side of the football on a macro level, but to lead a deep, deep safety group on a micro level.

Which is why McKinney doesn’t simply want to be the best safety in football. He wants to bring his guys with him.

“For me, it’s continuing to find ways to improve, and not just for myself but continuing to elevate these guys around me,” McKinney said after Family Night ended. “That’s going to be the main thing. I’m trying to have the best safety room in the league.

“I think we’ve done a great job with building that, and I think tonight everybody got to see what we have in our room. We’ve got a special room.”

Indeed, McKinney spent his first season in Green Bay with three rookie draft picks in his room (second-rounder Javon Bullard, fourth-rounder Evan Williams and fifth-rounder Kitan Oladapo), as well as Zayne Anderson on the 53-man roster and Brown on the practice squad.

All of them saw meaningful action during the course of the season except Brown, although even he was elevated from the practice squad to be active for two games.

“‘X’ helped me a lot last year,” Williams, penciled in to start alongside McKinney again this year after starting six games with him last season. “Picking up the playbook, how to handle yourself as a pro, how to watch film — just those little things that can give you an edge on any given Sunday.”

Said LaFleur: “That’s what the great ones do. They’re going to bring those around them and help them get better. Ultimately, there’s no success like team success in the ultimate team sport. I think it speaks to the level of the character of the person.”

Set to turn 26 on Saturday when the Packers open preseason play against the New York Jets at Lambeau Field, McKinney acknowledged that one of his challenges last season was learning how to lead and learning how to be patient with such inexperienced running mates — while still being young himself.

“I think one of the biggest things that I learned about myself was my level of patience,” he said. “Being in a room where we had a younger group of guys, a younger team, obviously a new team for me — and then also where I was at in my career — I had to learn patience [and] not force anything. I wanted it to come to me naturally and not force anything.

“I’m just going to keep figuring out ways where I can be more patient with different guys, because everybody’s different. So it’s just trying to learn different people, understand them and also have them understand me so I can lead my best way. And they can follow.”

When it was pointed out to McKinney that he’s too young to be the “cool uncle” in the safety room and barely old enough to qualify as a “big brother,” McKinney laughed.

But he quickly turned serious, explaining why he believes his style of leadership works.

“I think I’m one of them. And I think that’s the best thing, too, about it,” he explained. “We’re all really the same age. But at the same time, with that, I have to understand that I am the leader in the room, so there are certain things that I can and cannot do. Because I know that everybody else is watching me.

“I have to have that certain level of maturity about how I go about my days and what they see me do in the film room, how they see me prepare in walkthroughs, how I practice. So I understand that everybody’s watching, even when I don’t know or don’t think so.

“But I would just say I feel like I’m one of them. And I think that works out well for us.”

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