GREEN BAY, Wis. – Good players win games. Great players win championships.
The Green Bay Packers have a roster full of good players. Do they have enough great players to make a run at an elusive 14th NFL championship?
Pro Football Network published its list of the top 100 players in the NFL. Only one member of the Packers made the list, safety Xavier McKinney at No. 57.
Last season, the Packers finished 11-6 but wound up third in the NFC North because they went 1-5 in division play and 0-6 against the conference’s top teams.
That reality is reflected in PFN’s rankings.
The Detroit Lions, who won the NFC North the past two seasons, have seven players in the top 100, including five in the top 50. Safeties Joseph and Brian Branch were both ahead of McKinney.
The Minnesota Vikings, who joined the Lions in sweeping the past last season, have four players in the top 100, led by receiver Justin Jefferson at No. 15.
The Chicago Bears don’t have anyone on the list, even though they acquired All-Pro guard Joe Thuney from the Chiefs to fix a serious weakness on the offensive line.
The Philadelphia Eagles, whose sweep of the Packers included a win in the wild-card round, have nine players in the top 100. They have six players in the top 40 – surprisingly, running back Saquon Barkley was not among them – including both offensive tackles residing in the top 20.
Twelve quarterbacks made the list, with Jordan Love not making the cut. The Ravens’ Lamar Jackson, the Bengals’ Joe Burrow, the Eagles’ Jalen Hurts, the Commanders’ Jayden Daniels, the Lions’ Jared Goff, the Cardinals’ Kyler Murray and the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott are on Green Bay’s schedule.
Jackson is No. 1 after throwing 41 touchdowns and four interceptions and finishing No. 1 with a 119.6 passer rating and 8.8 yards per attempt.
“Jackson’s season was a masterclass in modern dual-threat quarterbacking,” PFN wrote.
Green Bay’s defense is going to need to be on top of its game given the list of premier quarterbacks on the schedule.
“That next step I think is to have one of the best defenses in the league,” McKinney said. “That’s what we’re aiming for. We’re trying to be a defense that always creates turnovers, that plays with a level of intensity where the offense can’t match us, and I think we got the guys to do that. Obviously, we still got the coaches to do that. I think that’s the next step for us.”
As for McKinney’s spot among the NFL’s best players, he was first-team All-Pro last season. He finished second in the league with eight interceptions behind Detroit’s Kerby Joseph and tied Joseph for No. 1 with nine takeaways.
“McKinney’s ball skills were at the forefront of his 2024 performance,” PFN wrote. “He picked off eight passes and became the first player since 1970 to record an interception in each of his first five games with a team.
“McKinney’s tackling was equally impressive, recording 90 tackles on the year with a 5.7 percent missed-tackle rate. He’s one of the few safeties who can do it all, and the change of scenery appears to be treating him well.”
What can McKinney – the No. 2 player in our 90-to-1 ranking of the team’s most important players – do for an encore after recording more interceptions in 2024 than the entire Packers defense had in 2023?
“There’s always going to be levels of improvement,” McKinney said during OTAs. “I think my biggest thing is I like to say, I have my foot on their necks. And, really, it’s going to be the same. I’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.
“Obviously, 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. So, for me it’s just keep grinding, keep my head down, and keep locking in on the small details so I don’t get complacent and I keep having these All-Pro years.”
Pro Football Focus is in the midst of publishing its top-50 list. McKinney is No. 38 and running back Josh Jacobs, “one of the league’s most versatile backs,” is No. 49.