GREEN BAY — On opposite sides of the Green Bay Packers luxe locker room inside Lambeau Field, two players — both of whom wear the captain’s C on their chests each game — were issuing bold, public challenges to their teammates. 

In the aftermath of an ugly 13-10 loss to the previously winless Cleveland Browns and in advance of what the Packers (2-1) believe should be a prime-time bounce-back against the Dallas Cowboys (1-2) at AT&T Stadium, both tight end Tucker Kraft and safety Xavier McKinney felt the need to speak out.

For Kraft, the team’s emerging offensive star, it was time to challenge his teammates on that side of the ball to do more to complement a defense that entered this week’s games ranked No. 1 in scoring defense (14.7 points per game) and third in total defense (232.3 yards per game).

“We have the best defense in the NFL, so we just have to help them out,” Kraft told a gaggle of reporters around his locker. “The defense needs us to play like that so we can play complementary to them. They held a team to 13 points in the fourth quarter. It was 10-0 up until the fourth quarter. That’s remarkable. Not a lot of defenses are doing that.

“We’re fed up with our own mistakes and we’ve got to limit those in the future.”

At roughly the same time, McKinney was holding court with another group of reporters. And while he was clearly perturbed by the effort the team — defense included — had delivered against the Browns, he also found himself thankful that such an effort had come when it did.

“I said it before we played the Browns, that I just felt like we got too carried away with being 2-0. And I think we felt like we had won the Super Bowl,” McKinney said, referring to the Packers’ convincing victories over the Detroit Lions on Sept. 7 and the Washington Commanders four days later, both at Lambeau Field.

“It’s a long season. You have your ups and downs. But you learn from everything, you learn from losses all the time. I think that was something that we learned from and I’m glad that it happened early rather than late. So that’s just a lesson that you learn and you keep moving forward.”

And the primary lesson?

“Not to be complacent. Not to think just because you won two games in a row that the season is finished, the Green Bay Packers are Super Bowl champions. No,” McKinney said. “It don’t work like that. So I wish that [were true]. It would be a lot easier if it did, but it don’t work like that. And I think we all understand that 1759041189.”

As for Kraft’s pronouncement moments earlier about the offense holding up its end of the bargain, McKinney said the defense would appreciate the sentiment but said he didn’t want his compadres on that side of the ball to view the team’s dynamic quite that way.

“We’ve still got to know that we’ve got a job to do. Because if we don’t prepare the right way, then anything can happen on Sunday,” McKinney said. “So we appreciate that from the offensive guys, but at the same time, we don’t ever want to let our guard down or think we’re too good that we can’t be scored on or we can’t have a bad day.

“It’s possible for anybody to have a bad day. So for us, we just try to keep the same mentality of staying locked in on our job and going out there and executing.”

To McKinney’s point, while the offense has certainly had its issues with getting the running game going, finding consistency on the offensive line and figuring out which would-be pass-catchers need to be more involved than others, the defense has one glaring weakness through three games: A lack of takeaways.

Despite a training camp-long emphasis on forcing more fumbles — they even had a coronation of “The Ball King,” who charted each snap of each practice to keep track of attempts to force fumbles or opportunities to intercepted passes — the Packers have just two takeaways so far: An Evan Williams interception in their season-opening win over the Detroit Lions on Sept. 7, and a late-in the-first-half punt-like interception by McKinney on a fourth-down heave by Joe Flacco as halftime approached.

Through three games, the Jacksonville Jaguars lead the league in takeaways with eight (an NFL-best seven interceptions, two fumble recoveries) while the Minnesota Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers share the lead for fumble recoveries (five).

Last season, in their first year in defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley’s system, the Packers finished fourth in the 32-team NFL in takeaways (31), with 17 interceptions (tied for third) and 14 fumble recoveries (also third).

Which is why Hafley believes it’s only a matter of time before they start accumulating turnovers.

“[If] you’re process driven, you put in a lot of work, and you do it over and over and over again, and you emphasize it, and you coach it. And if it falls up short, you don’t give up on it,” Hafley said. “Now, maybe you tweak certain things that you’re doing, or maybe you have new thoughts, and you look hard at yourself why they’re not happening.

“But we’ve emphasized that more than we’ve emphasized it last year. It just so happened last year at this time, I think we had nine, and my belief is that they’re coming.

“I mean, we’re swinging at the ball more than we did last year. And that’s the truth, because we’re even charting that. But, yeah, I want to get more takeaways. We want to get more takeaways. I don’t think anybody’s sitting here happy with that.

“So if you want to think about something that we need to do better — and there is other things we have to clean up, and I think we can play better — that’s one of them And I’ll do my best to make sure we get ‘em.”

​COPYRIGHT 2025 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.