It was clear that the Green Bay Packers needed to make the safety position a priority following the 2023 NFL season. Darnell Savage, Jonathan Owens, and Rudy Ford, the three players who manned the position for Green Bay last year, simply not good enough.
With more money to spend in free agency than he had in previous seasons, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst went out and signed the best safety on the market: Xavier McKinney.
He also used three of his 11 draft picks on the safety position, selecting Javon Bullard, Evan Williams, and Kitan Oladapo.
Xavier McKinney Had a Stellar Season for the Green Bay packers
Tork Mason
McKinney signed a four-year $67 million contract with the Packers after spending the first four years of his career with the New York Giants. Going into the 2024 season, he had nine career interceptions.
The Packers new safety recorded eight in his first year with the Packers, including a stretch of five in five games.
In addition to eight picks, McKinney tied a career-high with 11 passes defended and had the second-most tackles of his career (88).
He became the first Packers safety to be named to the Pro Bowl since Ha Ha Clinton-Dix in 2016.
Clinton-Dix, Nick Collins, Darren Sharper, LeRoy Butler, Chuck Cecil, Willie Wood, and Bobby Dillon are the only other safeties in team history to be named to the Pro Bowl.
Dillon, Wood, Butler, and Sharper were the only ones ever named First Team All-Pro, until McKinney was on Friday:
Xavier McKinney has been named First-team All-Pro by the Associated Press.
— zachary jacobson (@zacobson) January 10, 2025
McKinney was Green Bay’s only All-Pro this year. Keisean Nixon had been named First Team All-Pro as a kick return specialist in each of the past two seasons, but did not get that honor again this year.
4 Other Green Bay Packers Players Received All-Pro Votes
While McKinney was the only Green Bay player to be named to an All-Pro team in 2024, he was not the only one who received votes. According to Matt Schneidman of The Athletic, four other Packers players received Second-Team votes:
- Elgton Jenkins (10 votes)
- Zach Tom (three votes)
- Edgerrin Cooper (one vote)
- Keisean Nixon (one vote at cornerback and seven at kick returner)
Of course, it is exciting that Cooper, a first-year linebacker who just won Defensive Rookie of the Month, got even a single vote considering how little he played earlier in the season. It seems as if the Packers may finally have a star inside linebacker on their hands.
It is also noteworthy that Nixon, who has been heavily criticized for his defense, is now garnering recognition as being among the best cornerbacks in the game.
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