GREEN BAY \u2014 To understand just how vital Xavier McKinney was to the Green Bay Packers defense last season \u2014 and why opposing offenses paid him the first-team All-Pro safety the ultimate compliment by steering clear of him during the second half of the year \u2014 it\u2019s instructive to rewind roughly three decades.<\/p>\n
It was in the days leading up to Super Bowl XXXII, and Denver Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan had decided there was one player he knew his 12 1\/2-point underdog Broncos had to avoid to prevent him from wrecking the game plan.<\/p>\n
Safety LeRoy Butler.<\/p>\n
\u201cMike Shanahan is one of my favorite coaches. He seemed to have the one kryptonite for me,\u201d Butler recalled after being elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2022. \u201cHe and [Broncos offensive coordinator Gary] Kubiak said, \u2018If we can stop \u2014 not Reggie White \u2014 but if we could stop LeRoy Butler, we can win the Super Bowl.\u2019<\/p>\n
The Broncos did just that, of course, upsetting the Packers, 31-24, and dashing Green Bay\u2019s dream of back-to-back Super Bowl titles. While Butler held fellow Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe, the Broncos\u2019 star tight end, to five receptions for 38 yards, Super Bowl MVP running back Terrell Davis ran for 157 yards and three touchdowns on 30 carries with Butler preoccupied with Sharpe.<\/p>\n
Now, let\u2019s hold off on commissioning a sculpture of McKinney\u2019s bust in Canton. But he was undeniably a field-tilter during the first half of his first season with the Packers, intercepting a pass in each of the first five games of the season.<\/p>\n
Although McKinney finished the year with eight INTs, it was obvious to defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley that opponents began treating him the way Shanahan steered clear of Butler all those years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen\u2019s the last time you\u2019ve seen anyone throw the ball up near him?\u201d Hafley said in the days leading up to the Packers\u2019 season-ending NFC playoff loss to the eventual Super Bowl-champion Philadelphia Eagles in January. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t taking shots where he is. I think that\u2019s huge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so glad that he\u2019s here. I just think the best is yet ahead for this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old McKinney, who joined the Packers on a four-year, $67 million deal ($24 million guaranteed) after four seasons with the New York Giants, registered 85 tackles (58 solo), a sack, two tackles for a loss, a team-best 11 pass break-ups, a fumble recovery, and those eight interceptions \u2014 second-most in the NFL \u2014 on his way to earning first-team All-Pro and Pro Bowl recognition.<\/p>\n
He was also the centerpiece of Hafley\u2019s system, which functions best with a versatile, mistake-erasing post safety, which is exactly what McKinney was. That the Packers finished the regular season No. 5 in total defense (314.5 yards per game), No. 6 in scoring defense (19.9 points per game) and No. 4 in takeaways (31) in McKinney\u2019s first year was no accident.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s up to him to replicate or surpass in Year 2 what he did in Year 1\u2014and maybe someday join Butler in the Hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not going to let off the gas for nothing or nobody. That same intensity, that same energy, it’s going to stay the same,\u201d McKinney said. \u201cObviously I know what I want to accomplish by the end of my career and I know that in order to hit that goal, these years are going to matter. So I take that seriously, I don’t take that lightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve said it before, a gold jacket is what I’m aiming for. That’s always going to be the goal. It’s been the goal since I came in [to the league], and it’s been a goal since I was a kid. So that energy that level of intensity is always going to stay the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
About our \u201cMost Important Packers of 2025\u201d Series:\u00a0\u00a0When the Packers kick off their seventh training camp under head coach Matt LaFleur on July 23, they\u2019ll do so with a host of players facing pivotal seasons. LaFleur clearly believes he has ample talent to be a Super Bowl contender \u2014 even if he didn\u2019t want to say so as the offseason program came to a close \u2014 but turning that belief into reality will require many of those players to produce at higher levels than they have in the past. This series, which began in 2010 on ESPNWisconsin.com<\/a>, examines each of those players and how the team\u2019s success hinges on their contributions. The list is compiled with input from team observers, former players and NFL sources.<\/p>\n \u200bCOPYRIGHT 2025 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GREEN BAY \u2014 To understand just how vital Xavier McKinney was to the Green Bay Packers defense last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[7,41,345,2514,2513,15153,3031,12565,122,6,428,4912,45129,5582],"class_list":{"0":"post-215962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-bay-packers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-green-bay","10":"tag-green-bay-packers","11":"tag-greenbay","12":"tag-greenbaypackers","13":"tag-leroy-butler","14":"tag-matt-lafleur","15":"tag-mike-shanahan","16":"tag-national-football-league","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-packers","19":"tag-pro-bowl","20":"tag-super-bowl-xxxii","21":"tag-xavier-mckinney"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114872396516361305","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}