The Green Bay Packers stand victorious after a sluggish, ugly win against the New York Giants. They now sit at 6-3-1 on the year, second place in the NFC North and sixth in the NFC. It feels like a lifetime ago that the Packers were actually the first seed in the NFC, even though that was only three short weeks ago. A lot can change in three weeks in the NFL, and following two straight losses at home will have your season flipped on its head, no matter who you are.
Now, when your only three losses on the year come were dealt by a three point difference, there are going to be a lot of questions thrown around on the offensive side of things. While the defense hasn’t been totally lost in the discussion, they seem to have a back seat in the minds of media and fans alike. And that’s a bit strange, seeing how they’ve probably exceeded the wildest dreams of Packers fans, even after the Micah Parsons trade. We’re only two years removed from every Packers fan in the world demanding the head of Joe Barry on a silver platter, after all.
Let’s take a look at some of the numbers.
The Packers are currently allowing the sixth least total yards per game, are tenth in passing yards per game and seventh in rushing yards per game. They’re seventh in points allowed per game, and currently have a +1 turnover differential over the year. According to some of the more analytical sides of the football world, the Packers also rank highly. PFF has them as the fourth highest rated defense in the league, with the highest tackling grade and the second highest coverage grade. They’ve got the ninth best rate of success rate allowed, and are 17th in EPA per play.
My aim today is to dig a bit into one of the engines of that defense: the secondary. While the pass rush received the majority of the attention, the secondary was also a massive question mark for the team as they entered the season. If you were to look at any list of “team needs” entering last offseason, you’d see the Packers listed with a big need at CB.
The front office chose to make only two additions to the secondary in the form of former Raider Nate Hobbs and seventh round selection Michah Robinson, who is no longer on the team. Hobbs has… not impressed during his time in green and gold.
As the 2025 season has progressed, a few bright stars have emerged for the Packers in the form of their youngest contributors. Evan Williams, Javon Bullard, and Carrington Valentine. They’ve fought tooth and nail to establish their own individual spots in this secondary, and have made the most of those opportunities.
Javon Bullard
Bullard, famously the first of three safeties taken in the 2024 draft, was expected to land a major role within the organization: the starting safety spot opposite of Xavier McKinney. That’s where he started training camp that year, that’s where he was prepared to play. But two outside factors forced some massive changes for the former Georgia Bulldog.
First was the emergence of Evan Williams. Then, injuries to Jaire Alexander lead to a re-shuffling along the secondary. As we all know, Jaire’s injury forced Keisean Nixon from the slot to the boundary spot, leaving the slot corner position open for Bullard to fill.
Bullard ended that season in uncharted territory, and I still don’t think he got enough credit for it. Out of all defensive players in the NFL, he was one of only players that played at least 250 snaps at safety and slot corner. What’s more, he was the first rookie to do so since 2007.
So far in 2025, Bullard has found a more steady role for himself in a slot defender role, rather than a hybrid player. After playing only 44% of his snaps in the slot last year, he’s now up to a 77% rate there this year. While playing in the slot, Bullard has markedly improved from last year. In 2024, he allowed an 84.2% completion percentage, 10.1 yards per reception, three touchdowns, and a 119.8 QB rating when targeted. So far through 2025, those same numbers are good for an 82.5% completion percentage, 6.6 yards per reception, 0 touchdowns, and an 89.5 QB rating.
It hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows for Bullard, he was struggling in a big way at the start of this season. If we look at PFF for a general outline of performance (with the mandatory pinch of salt), Bullard received grades of 44.7, 61.0, 47.3, and 58.2 over the first month of the season. However since the week 5 bye, Bullard has never received a grade lower than 64, and has been in the 70’s consistently. Maybe that doesn't sound impressive, but remember that playing cornerback in the NFL is really hard, and PFF doesn't grade on a curve. In fact, since the bye in week 5 Javon Bullard is the 9th highest graded corner, and the 8th highest graded corner in coverage, in the entire league. Most impressively, perhaps, is that Bullard has yet to allow a touchdown when targeted so far this season.
Bullard has demonstrated remarkable improvement in coverage, flashing that ability that made him a second round pick in the first place. One of those highly sought after traits in college was his ability to come down into the box and help out in run support, something Bullard has continued this year in the NFL. In 2024 Bullard recorded 26 run stops, and has already almost beaten that mark with 20 run stops through week 10.
Evan Williams
Of course Bullard’s fellow safety selection in 2024, Evan WIlliams, might be the crown jewel of that entire class. Between him, Bullard, and Edgerrin Cooper, the Packers upgraded the middle of their defense in a major way that weekend.
Williams was selected in the fourth round, a bit of a surprise at the time. Williams had only spent a single season playing high end college football, as a transfer from Fresno State to Oregon. Williams caught the attention of NFL scouts during the scouting cycle that year for his standout performance at the Senior Bowl, and was even voted on as the Defensive Player of the Week by his coaches and fellow players.
The impression he made that week convinced the Packers to trade up for him in the fourth round, and from the word go he set out to claim the starting safety spot for himself. It was in week five of the 2024 season that Williams finally outsnapped Bullard, and he hasn’t given that safety spot back since.
On the field, Williams has put together an extremely impressive 2025. There have been several games this season where Williams has looked like the best defender on the entire field, notably the week 1 matchup against the Lions, when he allowed only one catch for five yards and had an interception.
When you watch these games, take a look at the defensive players around the ball when the tackle is made. I’d bet that almost every time, Williams is somewhere in the vicinity. His ability to range across space and break on wherever the ball is going is such a big part of his game. Just watch his body language. It almost seems that if he doesn’t get the chance to impact the play, it annoys him.
Williams also makes for a great running mate with Xavier McKinney. The two have such a great ability to switch roles based on what the defense is presenting. Even though McKinney is often thought of as being the “roaming free safety” in Jeff Hafley’s defense, McKinney and Williams actually split that duty quite often. This season, McKinney has played 210 snaps in the box and 411 at FS, while Williams’ snaps are 160 to 333.
Carrington Valentine
The third year cornerback out of Kentucky, Carrington Valentine has done nothing but impress while on the field for the Packers, even if his main struggle seems to be fighting for that playing time in the first place.
Valentine has started every season of his time in the NFL as a backup, and had to slowly earn more and more snaps as the season went on. In 2023 and 2024, those opportunities came mainly out of necessity due to external factors such as injuries. This year though? He’s just earned them.
He’s played more than forty snaps in six separate games this year, and impressed in them all. It might be a bit nitpicky, but if you look at just those weeks in which he played more than forty snaps, Carrington Valentine is the eigth highest ranked cornerback in the league, and the sixth highest graded cornerback in coverage.
Out of these three players I’ve talked about today, Valentine likely has the most to prove over the remaining games of the 2025 season, as he looks to cement his role as a starting outside corner for the Packers. That’s just the reality of being a seventh round pick in the NFL, especially when the Packers chose to commit a lot of money and resources into signing Nate Hobbs. Make no mistake, that move was designed specifically to take Valentine off the field, so that Hobbs could play opposite of Keisean Nixon.
It’s up to Valentine to prove the Packers wrong the rest of the season. If the Packers were looking to account for Valantine’s lack on contribution in run defense and tackling, which were admittedly big holes in his game last year, they are probably happy with the growth he’s shown in those areas too. His missed tackle percentage is up from an unsustainable 20% to 12% this year.
Conclusion
While a lot was made out of what this secondary would look like this season, especially in a post Jaire Alexander Green Bay, the coaches, media and fans of the Packers alike should count themselves lucky in the young core that this team has put together.
Simply put, the Packers need to start trusting these three to hold down their spots, particularly Carrington Valentine. Rotating players at stress points on the roster is part of the Packers identity at this point, but I’d really like to see Valentine remain the starter for the rest of the season.
Obviously there are still chapters to be written in the story of the 2025 season, but the continued excellent play of these three in the secondary should be counted as massively impactful towards the success of the 2025 Green Bay defense, and the viability of that defense for years to come.