Five games into the 2024 NFL season, Green Bay Packers safety Xavier McKinney had five interceptions. Five games into the 2025 season, McKinney has one interception.
After McKinney earned first-team All-Pro recognition for the 2024 season, opponents are steering clear of the former Alabama defensive back. McKinney said being respected by NFL quarterbacks “is cool, but it’s boring.”
“Especially with how we’re playing, it can get kind of boring back there a little bit,” McKinney said. “But I’m just trying to keep finding ways to get involved and to place myself in positions where I can get more involved into these games and make some more plays.”
So far this season, opposing quarterbacks have thrown to a receiver covered by McKinney 14 times and have produced a passing-efficiency rating of 49.4.
With Micah Parsons joining the Packers this season, McKinney said, opposing quarterbacks are trying to get their throws off fast in the face of Green Bay’s pass rush.
“Don’t get as many opps as we did last year,” McKinney said. “But I also think on the opps that we do get, we got to capitalize. But, I mean, y’all seeing what we seeing. Like, it’s a lot of checkdowns majority of the time, so we just got to try to keep finding ways to punch at the ball, and when they do throw the ball deep, we got to capitalize on them opportunities. …
“But I think, eventually, we’ll start getting some of these turnovers and the ball’ll start rolling our way. But that’s just how we’re playing, and we force the team to check it down, and we just got to keep playing within our scheme and make them plays when we get the opportunity to see them.”
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Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley said Green Bay is trying to get McKinney more involved.
“We’ve moved him around,” Hafley said. “And, like, today, him and I talked about plans to move him around. He’s got the ability on calls to put himself in different positions, too. One of his favorite things to do is be in that middle spot because he kind of gets to roam around and play football. But, absolutely, we can move him around with certain calls and drop him into different areas, and he has the green light on multiple calls to put himself into those situations, for sure, and we’ll continue to do that.”
The Packers take a 3-1-1 record into their game against the Arizona Cardinals at 3:25 p.m. CDT Sunday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
The Cardinals are 2-4 after four consecutive losses.
“We got to do what we got to do,” McKinney said. “Like, regardless of what they going through, how many games they lost, how many games they won, we got to control what we can control, and that’s how we go out there and play and go out there and execute. So we not really thinking about their previous games.
“Obviously, we’re looking at them. But wins or losses, that don’t really mean much in this league. Like, you can go in there and play anybody and anything can happen on a Sunday. So I think we’re very aware of that, and we’re locked in and focused.”
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