Xavier McKinney Marks the Spot in Green Bay’s Secondary

For the Packers safety superhero who goes by the nickname ‘X’, interceptions, streaks and history are great and all, but his ultimate goal is a gold jacket in Canton.

McKinney recorded his league-leading seventh interception of the season in Green Bay's rout of San Francisco on Sunday. / Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

It’s true, Xavier McKinney says. Interceptions are like bananas, roses and parades in Kansas City every winter. They come in bunches until, suddenly, it’s raining interceptions.

Still, in a specific, related slice of professional football history, the longest streaks of consecutive games with at least one interception mostly predate the West Coast offense. When Oakland Raiders ballhawk Tom Morrow picked off at least one pass in eight consecutive games in late 1962 and early ’63, he recorded the longest-ever stretch. But, even Morrow’s own mother would note that offensive football wasn’t anywhere near the same universe of modern football in sophistication or complexity.

In fact, since Y2K, only two defenders have entered that INT-streaking conversation. Minnesota Vikings safety Brian Russell grabbed at least one errant throw in six consecutive games in 2001. And Dallas Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs registered just as many two decades later.

That held, those two, until this season, when McKinney snagged, seized, grabbed and snatched his way into their club. McKinney saw all this coming, he says. Leaving the New York Giants after four successful seasons and signing with the Green Bay Packers this past spring, he sees that sequence as no less than fate. He sees himself as violent and cerebral, fearless and disciplined, a safety and a mission control specialist. His: Boost the Lambeau Leapers back into the Super Bowl, triumph, repeat; and, eventually, sit for a Hall of Fame bust.

Get Sports Illustrated's Total Athlete issue. dark. Order Now. SIP December Total Athlete

Anyone who might have guffawed at such grand ambition before this season isn’t laughing anymore. McKinney ranks among Pro Football Focus’s highest-graded players; at midseason, he was the site’s highest-graded Packer. He’s a front-runner for Defensive Player of the Year. And, as part of the mission, a cornerstone for a Super Bowl contender. He was all that, right away, from the season opener through 12 weeks, just out there grabbing interceptions like bananas off a grocery store produce rack.

McKinney’s first six INTs this season came on only 12 targets from opposing quarterbacks; his seventh came Sunday, at home against the San Francisco 49ers. He returned that pick 48 yards, added a pair of pass deflections and made three solo tackles. The Packers trounced the Niners, improving to 8-3, their record at once announcing their NFC contender status and ranking third in the NFL’s most formidable division.

The record-tying streak began with a pair of interceptions in Week 18 last season with the Giants. And it continued—game after game—with the Packers. Week 1: pick. Week 2: same. Just like in Weeks 3, 4 and 5. Clad in dark green and gold, McKinney became the first player since 1970 to snag at least one INT in his first five games with a new team. He picked off a former college teammate (Jalen Hurts), a pair of struggling former first-rounders (Anthony Richardson and Will Levis), a quarterback amid a remarkable resurgence (Sam Darnold) and a legend (Matthew Stafford). In the Packers’ storied-upon-storied history, only one other defender had fashioned a pick streak of similar length. Name: Irv Comp. Season: 1943.

So, yeah, McKinney is a lot of things, all those things, most of them elite. What he’s not is what he has never been: surprised by his own play. He hasn’t thought too much about the history now laden into his first Packers season. He has noticed how many other people have noticed, though. It can seem like they’re not aware that McKinney ever played football before, for how long, where, or how well.

“Yeah, I don’t know why people just act like it’s just out of nowhere,” McKinney told Sports Illustrated over Zoom in early November.

He sighs, softly, just barely loud enough to hear. Pivot. He never played for their approval, anyway. He says he doesn’t care.

He could say: Welcome to the party. The bandwagon has room.

---

McKinney tied the NFL record of six consecutive games with an interception when he picked off Stafford in Green Bay's 24-19 win over L.A. on Oct. 6. / Robert Hanashiro-Imagn Images

Before the 49ers game, Xavier’s mom, Eboni McKinney asked him the same question many others have posed this season. “Go out there and get your mom one,” she said, meaning an interception.

“O.K.,” Xavier responded, this being mom and all. “I got you.”

Eboni taught her son to think this way, dreaming beyond what might seem possible to most. Before Xavier played in college, before he even chose Alabama, she told him, “History will know your name.”

Which isn’t to say that every McKinney heard a 5-year-old talking about gold jackets and thought, sure thing, easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, let’s do it. Xavier said those things. His relatives heard them. No one outright discouraged him from any pursuit, as lofty as they were. His mother’s father and brother both did tell Xavier that playing in the NFL, let alone starring in the NFL, let alone doing both long enough to enter Canton conversations, came with odds as slim as winning the lottery.

Eboni would follow their guidance by suggesting to Xavier that he formulate a Plan B. While he did, she made sure he studied for his classes, completed homework and positioned himself for the scholarship he would obtain. But every time she explored the notion of a backup plan, her son would shoot it down just as quickly as she raised it. “This is Plan A,” he would say, “and it’s the only plan I have.”

From then to now, her son’s ambitions never altered. NFL. Super Bowl champion. Gold jacket.

---

For as well as McKinney has played over the past four seasons, there’s not much available online about him. Just clues, hints dropped at Alabama or in New York that begin to add up to what he’s creating in Green Bay. Start here: McKinney is a different dude. His Instagram bio consists of one word, “artist.” He’s into fashion. He even goes by a superhero nickname.

“Call me X,” McKinney says.

More unspooling, at home in Week 6 against the Arizona Cardinals. X happens to be mic’d up. He’s shouting. Things like, Them big dawgs coming out! He’s imploring teammates to prove they’re the league’s best defense. He’s barking. He’s screaming. He’s telling one person who works the Packers sideline that he loves him. He’s telling Cardinals wideouts to relax; he’s everywhere, in other words, at the same time.

These glimpses show X, loose and locked in, not as mere INT machine but a defensive force. Perhaps that owes to a simple notion: X really is a football cyborg. And because he’s all football, always, he’s both an elite safety and one of the league’s most versatile players.

Bandwagon newcomers will focus on the turnovers, the streak. Not X. He’s far too complete and resourceful a safety to entertain such constructs, false as he considers them.

The Giants took him in the second round in 2020. He lasted that long for two primary reasons: Safeties aren’t as prized as, say, top corners or pass rushers, and he ran a plodding (relative) 40-yard dash (4.63 seconds) at the combine.

Anyone focused on that relevant-but-over-emphasized measurable missed what makes X a safety superhero in the first place. He points to instincts, first. His: spectacular. Sometimes, Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley told local reporters earlier this season, he’ll pause film reviews and play back sequences in slower-than-slow motion. He’ll notice, more often than should be possible, that when quarterbacks are about to release passes, X will already have broken on them, ball still coming out of hand.

X was born with those instincts. He was always different, Eboni says. Laser focused on football and those dreams. Very few outside interests. What he did try, though, he picked up easily, such as the drums. X was always banging stuff, and he sounded good, so, in middle school mom enrolled him in the band. Its director wondered where X had taken lessons. He had not, Eboni told the band leader, taken even one lesson. Same went for baseball. For basketball. For anything he tried.

Yes, born with instincts. But he still honed them. He never studied much in the way of film in high school. He didn’t need to. The Crimson Tide required better study habits, which only strengthened his instinct, which only meant more film.

The remote location of Alabama’s campus helped. So much so that X has always lived near where he trained. He moved from Tuscaloosa to East Rutherford, N.J., to Green Bay—a gridiron trinity of not-hot spots, where he focused on football, absent big city distractions.

Nick Saban, his college coach, pointed X toward the routines that now sustain him. X says he always blended into new environments seamlessly. Just ask the Crimson Tide and the Giants, who both utilized him in all sorts of ways. He rushed quarterbacks, covered wide receivers (plus tight ends) (and running backs), patrolled deep thirds, feigned pass rushes, pressed targets, played zone and man, and tackled. He did all fearlessly, too. Assumed an alpha leadership role. Led by example, with intention, holding teammates accountable. And, his coordinator notes, there are those great hands—ideal, one might say, to intercept footballs.

X prided himself on discipline and creativity but deployed the contrasting combination in tandem. “Dynamic player,” Hafley says. “He sees it so fast, and he reacts so fast.”

On that November videoconference, X is asked the obvious. Don’t combine measurables seem, well, stupid, in relation to players like, well, him? “Man, it’s so crazy,” he says. “My whole life, I’ve always felt that I can run. I never had a problem. Never had an issue with being fast.”

His combine 40 time shocked even the man who ran it. But X vowed to delineate football speed and track speed, which aren’t the same thing, automatically, but often correlate. Even with a worst-case 40, combine evaluators still graded McKinney at 6.38. Meaning: He projected as a “plus-starter.”

“You play [players who ran faster times] in a real game,” he says, “and they’re slow as dirt.”

X sees football as a thinking man’s pursuit. Those instincts are his X-ray vision. The combination, plus his makeup, makes X more like an NBA star—positionless. He’s at the front, X tells SI, of a pro football “evolution” that will mimic pro basketball trends. Already does with him.

---

McKinney's streak of interceptions in six consecutive games began in Week 18 of last year when he had two picks in his last game with the Giants. / Kevin R. Wexler / USA TODAY NETWORK

The end in New York featured a harbinger for the history ahead. In his last game as a football Giant, X snatched two interceptions. X, by the way, had plenty of those in previous seasons. The first: Dallas, rookie season, Dak Prescott out, Andy Dalton in. X logged snaps in only six games that year, the others lost to recovery for a metatarsal injury. That first pick came amid a season of limited snap counts. He snagged nine in four seasons, including five in 2021. He also missed more games in ’22 after an ATV crash. But when healthy, his snap-count percentage in that season (98 on defense) and last year (100) alleviated any concerns for evaluators who pursued him.

Eboni remembers the fear she felt after the accident, the desperate need to fly and see him and take care of him. She helped Xavier overcome the darker feelings, moods and days. Helped him come back to his default mode—football obsessed. She told him, even then, “You’re always going to win.” He did. Came back. Played better than before. These days, she sees an enhanced maturity in all areas of his life.

“It’s like him having an eye for the ball,” she says. “Always has a knack.”

X had built a reputation for complete play, versatility, continual growth. He believes other teams understood that. And this: It wasn’t easy in New York. “I’m not gonna lie,” he tells SI. “Man, I had some rough seasons … just a lot of things going on, with the organization, different coaches. Lotta change, from year to year, [with] schemes and dealing with things going on internally.”

X wasn’t sure he wanted to stay—if, that is, the Giants wanted him back. He’ll never know for sure. He says the subject never really came up. He thinks team brass decided to move another way, with several prominent roster machinations—Saquon Barkley (left in free agency), Brian Burns (signed)—still undecided early into free agency last spring. He’s asked to name the universe in which this logic actually makes sense. “Man, it didn’t,” X says. “It didn’t make a lot of sense to me, either.”

He chose to see that stretch for what it was—a time of lessons and growth and fortification of that safety superhero skill set. He entered free agency among the more prized available players, defense or otherwise. Analysts ranked him among the top safeties in the league. PFF ranked him fourth, while third in tackling and first in coverage.

Green Bay saw more. Only two defenders across the league had recorded at least 250 tackles, eight interceptions and 24 passes defensed in the previous three seasons—Tampa Bay safety Jordan Whitehead and … McKinney. Packers brass did what many offensive coordinators try hard not to do this fall—they targeted McKinney, then signed him to a four-year deal worth up to $67 million, with $23 million guaranteed. Still, the contract contained an interesting out clause. After one year and $25.05 million, the team could move on. Then and only then.

That notion is funny, remarkable, in hindsight. Now, opting out of X is about as likely as Green Bay renaming Lombardi Avenue after, say, Bill Belichick. A dude is how coach Matt LaFleur describes him.

X knew some of the Packers’ rich-and-prominent perch in pro football and sports history. But he cites a more critical understanding in relation to this season: his, of the Pack’s roster, which X gleaned in two games against Green Bay in recent years. He loved how they competed. Believed he could see something distinct. Building. Told himself, before signing: “They’re gonna be special.”

Now, even more so, because of him. X helped turn a positional weakness into a primary strength. The Packers rank second (tied) in the NFL in takeaways (22) through nearly three-quarters of the season, trailing the league-leading Houston Texans by one. X meshed quickly with his safety counterpart, rookie Evan Williams, forming a back-end combo many analysts cite as the league’s best.

X picked his first wayward pass this season off his former college teammate, Hurts, on the Packers’ first defensive series of the season. “Obviously a ball magnet,” cornerback Jaire Alexander said that night.

Broadcast cameras caught X and teammate Keisean Nixon whispering more picks into existence during a Week 2 win over the Indianapolis Colts.

Nixon: “Damn, two weeks, two picks! How many you going for? Ten?”

X: “Seven.”

Nixon: “Gonna say 10.”

X: “Fine, I like that. Say 10.”

In Week 3, Green Bay demolished the Tennessee Titans, victory fashioned from an eight-sack, three-turnover performance. Already, Hafley noted the next week, X had become the defense’s spiritual guide, a true look-toward-him captain, in only a matter of months. Hafley couldn’t help but laugh at a question directed his way in a news conference, the one about if he’d think twice throwing X’s way. “Would you think twice if he was back there?” he was asked.

Laughter roared. “I would.”

“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” LaFleur told reporters after a victory over the Los Angeles Rams steadied a sometimes shaky season, improving the now 8–3 Packers to 3–2 that week. Without X, they’re not in the division hunt. Without X, they’re maybe not in the playoff hunt.

---

“I want that jacket, I want that statue of my face, all that stuff, man, I want it. To be remembered in this game.”

- McKinney on his quest for Hall of Fame

Through Week 11, X remained in DPOY contention. His odds, though, were ridiculous—ridiculously low. He ranked as the eighth-best bet at most sports books. But, hey, $100 could yield $3,500 for someone who believes in X like he believes in himself. After the Niners win, his odds to win DPOY had improved. At FanDuel, X was +1,400, tied for the third-best bet beyond only T.J. Watt and Will Anderson Jr. To win an award, it must be noted, that typically revolves around sack counts. At the same book before the season, McKinney was a +25,000 bet.

Sure, he knew. Even after that performance against the Niners, which surely bettered his odds, he knew. He was overlooked, was underrated, was disrespected and for years. He reminded DJ Moore about that in a Week 11 win over the Chicago Bears. The wideout had asked “Who?” this spring when asked for reaction to the McKinney signing. In Chicago, McKinney responded, more or less, bet ya know me now.

Still, McKinney insists he isn’t necessarily consumed by any outside perceptions of his play. X had his plan. Hall of Fame bust or an actual bust. One bust or the other.

He says he first dreamt of donning a gold jacket at age 5, which is when he started playing football. Safeties, some of the best in NFL history, like Troy Polamalu and Ed Reed, drew X in, which only further inspired his lofty ambitions. When he watched their inductions, he couldn’t shake the only thought that came to him. “Damn, I want to take it to that level, too.

“I want that jacket, I want that statue of my face, all that stuff, man, I want it,” he says now. “To be remembered in this game.”

This response evolves the nature of his “special” season. How special depends on the viewpoint of the assessor. Yes, interceptions, history, streaks. Those are great and all. But there’s one person who doesn’t consider any of that special—X. The new bandwagoners are only seeing now what he knew, deep inside, all along; what he displayed, too, for far longer than most realized. 

Special? No. Just part of his master plan. Like the gloves he was asked to send from the Rams game, that day where X made NFL and franchise history. Officials from the Packers Hall of Fame were asking for them. There came another step—the kind his mom predicted. There’s more of that now, too.

“We’re coming for all the things,” she says. “Pro Bowl. Super Bowl. Rings. Hall. We’re coming.”

“I feel,” he says, “like I’m on track.”

History will know his name, right?

---

More NFL on Sports Illustrated

feed