When the Green Bay Packers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers face off this Sunday, it’ll present a compelling matchup between the Packers’ No. 1 offense in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted DVOA metric, and the Buccaneers’ second-ranked defense.
But there’s a side story that makes this game even more interesting. Bucs safety Antoine Winfield Jr. who’s playing at a Defensive Rookie of the Year clip, could make NFL history (and certainly family history) if he’s able to pick off a Rodgers pass.
We take you to the Wayback Machine to Week 4 of the 2009 NFL season, and a Packers 30-23 loss to the Vikings in which Rodgers completed 26 of 37 passes for 384 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception. The recipient of that interception with 11:47 left in the first half? None other than Minnesota cornerback Antoine Winfield. As in, of course, the father of Antoine Winfield Jr.
This was the 11th season of the elder Winfield’s career, and his second straight Pro Bowl season. If Winfield Jr. is able to pick a Rodgers pass this Sunday, he would be one of half of, to the best of our knowledge, the first father-son combo in NFL history to intercept passes by the same quarterback.
I watched tape with Winfield Jr. in February, and asked him how his father helped him with everything from picking up a quarterback’s tells to route recognition.
“Man … pretty much everything,” he said. “He started me off young, so at a young age, I was out there doing footwork drills with him, watching film and pretty much everything football-wise. I learned a lot from him.
“It comes from him, and from film study.Him teaching me how to watch film. When he was in the pros, we’d sit in the bedroom, and he’d be looking at film, and I’d be watching him breaking it down. Showing me what the receivers do and the route concepts and everything.”
So maybe the Winfields will be talking this week about how best to deal with Mr. Rodgers.
Winfield Sr. also picked off a Tom Brady pass as a member of the Bills’ secondary on November 11, 2001, but as Winfield Jr. and Brady are on the same team, Brady’s safe from the same possibility.