In the first five weeks of the season, the Green Bay Packers are at the top of the NFL in forcing turnovers. And that’s led by takeaway machine, safety Xavier McKinney.
Green Bay is tied with Buffalo for the best turnover ratio in the league at plus-7 and they lead the NFL with 14 takeaways (nine interceptions, five fumbles).
McKinney has six of the takeaways, highlighted by a league-high five interceptions with one in each game. He signed as an unrestricted free agent this past March, a market the Packers don’t dip into a lot, for $67 million over four years that included a $23 million signing bonus.
After the Packers’ 24-19 victory over the Rams last Sunday, McKinney was named NFC Defensive Player of the Week. He had takeaways on two successive Rams possessions.
Trailing 13-10 in the third quarter, the Rams had moved to the Packers’ 27-yard line when on second-and-6 defensive end Kingsley Enagbare forced running back Kyren Williams to fumble. McKinney recovered and ran for seven yards. Two plays later, quarterback Jordan Love connected with tight end Tucker Kraft for a 66-yard touchdown and a 17-13 lead.
The Rams followed that by driving to the Green Bay 48 where on third-and-10, McKinney intercepted a Matthew Stafford pass at the 18 and had a 28-yard return. Seven plays later, Love hit Kraft again, this time for a seven-yard touchdown and 24-13 lead with 3:55 remaining in the game.
With an interception against the Cardinals, McKinney would become the third player in NFL history with an interception in each of his team’s first six games of a season, joining Brian Russell in 2003 and Trevon Diggs in 2021.
While with the Giants, McKinney also recorded an interception in Week 18 of the 2023 season and now has an interception in six consecutive games overall. He can become the first player since 1968 and sixth player all-time to record an interception in seven consecutive games, joining Pro Football Hall of Famers Paul Krause (seven consecutive games in 1966) and former Cardinal Larry Wilson (seven in 1966) as well as Ben Davis (seven in 1968), Tom Landry (seven in 1951) and Tommy Morrow (eight in 1963).
Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon said the team has to “understand how he likes to take it away and why those takeaways are happening, but Xavier McKinney’s been a guy doing it forever. When he was in New York playing in that division, he was a guy that could take the ball away. Certain guys do, certain guys don’t. He’s a guy that does.”
“He’s a great player,” quarterback Kyler Murray said. “He’s going to do what he does. We’re trying not to give him the opportunity to do that.”
Does Murray have it in his mind during the game what the Packers are capable of?
He said, “I’m not out there playing scared or anything like that, but we understand going into this game that that’s something that they do well. And how do we win this game? In any game really you don’t want to turn the ball over, but this team obviously is looking for ways to create turnovers and they’re doing a great job of it, so we have to take care of the ball. That’s any game.”
The Cardinals have protected the ball well this season with only five turnovers (two interceptions, three fumbles). Only five NFL teams have fewer than five turnovers at this point of the season.
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