Packers nab former Giants DB Xavier McKinney to be the face of their pass defense

The Packers made a much-needed move to improve their pass defense by agreeing to terms with do-it-all DB Xavier McKinney.

The Green Bay Packers’ pass defense was kind of a disaster last season, and general manager Brian Gutekunst did what he needed to do by moving on from defensive coordinator Joe Barry and replacing him with Jeff Hafley. Now, the Packers have added a major cog to a defense that allowed 25 touchdowns to just nine interceptions last season. The team has agreed to terms with former New York Giants defensive back Xavier McKinney.

It’s a big deal, but McKinney has become a big-time player.

Selected in the second round of the 2020 draft out of Alabama, McKinney had his best season to date in 2023 as a key part of Wink Martindale’s blitz-heavy, man-heavy defense. He allowed 33 catches on 54 targets for 288 yards, 235 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, three interceptions, 11 pass-breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 52.1.

Moreover, McKinney can play anywhere in Hafley’s defense — deep third, box, slot, and even some press cornerback.

Jordan Love’s final interception was a bit too much like a certain Brett Favre mistake

Jordan Love’s game-sealing interception against the 49ers reminded everybody a bit too much of a former Brett Favre mistake.

The deep cross-body throw is one of the most difficult feats a quarterback can attempt — it is not a high-percentage play. You’re throwing against your own momentum, usually with one or more angry defenders in your face, and you’re trying to hit a target 30 or more yards downfield, when you factor in the horizontal yardage involved. And if you’re making a throw like that in a game-defining situation.., well, you’d better be pretty sure of yourself.

One quarterback who was always sure of himself, to his own detriment at times, was Hall of Famer and negatively creative financeur Brett Favre. Ol’ No. 4 did most of his work with the Green Bay Packers, but near the end of the Minnesota Vikings’ 2009 season, Favre threw a cross-body pick to New Orleans Saints cornerback Tracy Porter, causing the game to go into overtime. The Saints drove downfield, won the game with a 40-yard Garrett Hartley field goal, and we had the game that changed the overtime rules.

In Saturday’s divisional-round game between the Packers and the San Francisco 49ers, it was Jordan Love who had a similar situation. With 52 seconds left in the game, and the 49ers up 24-21, Love tried a deep cross-body pass to receiver Christian Watson that was intercepted by linebacker Dre Greenlaw.

The throws, and the results, were alarmingly similar.

“I haven’t looked at it yet,” Love said after the game of that last throw. “I haven’t looked at any pictures, so looking back on it, yeah, throw it away. I don’t know if I had an opportunity to be able to run. Maybe get out of bounds, but I forced it across the middle late, which is a mortal sin. It’s something I’ll look at. That’s an area right there where I’ll be able to look at, grow from and get better in the future.”

Packers regain lead after spectacular fumble recovery on long kickoff return

Eric Wilson of the Packers made an amazing fumble recovery

Keisean Nixon was off on a long kickoff return. After 73 yards, he was hit and fumbled. Elation turned into horror for Green Bay Packers fans.

However, Eric Wilson was following his kick return and made a dive for the loose football.

He came up with and four plays later, Tucker Kraft caught a TD pass from Jordan Love.

The two-point conversion to Aaron Jones was good and Green Bay led 21-14 in a game that had broken loose at Levi’s Stadium on Saturday.

Packers, 49ers trade touchdowns in third quarter

The Packers-49ers playoff game is seeing big plays in the second half

Big plays ignited the NFC Divisional Round game between the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers in the third quarter.

The seventh seed took a 13-7 lead after a PAT when Jordan Love hit Bo Melton with a pass and the wideout from Rutgers used some fancy football in the back of the end zone.

The Niners came right back with a TD of their own.

They went 75 yards in four plays with Christian McCaffrey covering the final 39 on a run.

After the PAT, the top seed in the NFC led, 14-13.

49ers stymie Packers in red zone three times

The 49ers’ defense was coming up big in the first half against the Packers

A key to playoff games — heck, any game — is coming away with touchdowns in the red zone.

In the first half of Saturday’s Divisional Round game between San Francisco and Green Bay, the 49ers were thwarting the Packers.

Green Bay came away with six points on three red-zone trips and trailed San Francisco, 7-6, in the second quarter.

Perhaps the biggest play of the opening half was San Francisco stuffing Jordan Love on a fourth-and-1 from the San Francisco 14 early in the second quarter.

Love came up inches short.

The Niners took over the football and went 86 yards over 12 plays. Brock Purdy threw a 32-yard TD pass to George Kittle for the score.

Green Bay was 4-for-4 in the red zone in its romp over Dallas. Different week, different opponent, different results.

Aaron Jones, George Kittle arrive in style for Packers-Niners

Aaron Jones arrived at Levi’s in a playoff sombreror

Aaron Jones of the Green Bay Packers and George Kittle of the San Francisco 40ers made fashion statements on Saturday at Levi’s Stadium.

The tight end showed up in a unique outfit but was trumped by the Packers’ star RB and his playoff sombrero.

Ravens, 49ers have the advantage of defenses that can do anything… and everything

The Ravens and 49ers are the one-seeds in the playoffs, and they both have defenses without specific tendencies. That’s not a coincidence.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers — the two one-seeds in the 2023 NFL playoffs — have defenses without a specific coverage type. In today’s NFL, with more formational and schematic concepts on offense, if you go out on the field without some things to mess up the opposing quarterback with different things, you’re left with an execution-based defense, and there’s very little margin for error if that’s the case.

The Cleveland Browns discovered that in their wild-card loss to the Houston Texans. In that 45-14 Houston win, the Browns stuck with their usual plan, to their direct detriment. C.J. Stroud had demolished single-high coverage all season long, and the Browns had run a higher rate of single-high in the regular season than any other defense. Cleveland decided to stay there in this game, and Stroud completed 12 of 16 passes for both of his touchdowns. On none of those 16 attempts did the Browns throw any kind of late movement at Stroud. It was line ’em up, and let’s go.

Browns’ refusal to adapt on defense cost them dearly against C.J. Stroud

When the Texans face the Baltimore Ravens on Saturday in the divisional round, Stroud will be tested in ways he certainly wasn’t last week. The Ravens do not have a specific coverage type. This season, they’ve run single-high coverage on 46.4% of their snaps, and two-high on 53.3% of their snaps. It’s been Cover-3, Cover-4, Cover-1, and Cover-6 in that order. You don’t know what you’re going to get from snap to snap, they do all of it well, and they’re very adept with coverage switches. 

The Ravens have made it very clear that the Stroud they’re dealing with now is a much more evolved than the Stroud that tried to navigate it all in his regular-season debut. The best way to counter that evolution is to make Stroud work through different coverage concepts. Mike Macdonald’s defense has no problem with that.

The Ravens know they’re dealing with a different C.J. Stroud this time around

On this deep incompletion against the Ravens in Week 1, Stroud had to manage a couple of things. First, Baltimore threw a six-man blitz at him with defensive back Kyle Hamilton off the edge, edge defender Odafe Oweh dropping into coverage, and linebacker Roquan Smith coming from the second level. And pre-snap, the Ravens showed a defined single-high look before moving to Cover-2. Brandon Stephens joined safety Marcus Williams as the second two-high defender. The combination of pressure and coverage must have made Stroud feel as if he had 13 or 14 defenders arrayed against him, and a near-interception was the result.

The 49ers, who play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, are another amorphous coverage defense.They’ve played 50% single-high this season, and two-high 50% of the time. It’s Cover-3, Cover-4, Cover-1, and Cover-2 in that order. The 49ers flip to a bit more single-high on third down, but as is the case with the Ravens, they play what works for them and they don’t change a lot from a systemic point in a situational sense. 

Packers quarterback Jordan Love has been as good as anybody playing his position in the second half of the season, but even the best quarterbacks can be made uncomfortable when faced with the right concepts in concert. In Week 2 against the Los Angeles Rams and Matthew Stafford, the 49ers got an interception by disguising their intentions. Stafford is a 15-year NFL veteran with as developed a sense of what defenses will do as any quarterback you’ll ever meet, but here, Steve Wilks’ defense won the day.

Stafford would have 2-Man coverage to deal with post-snap, but that wasn’t the look pre-snap. With a single-high safety, and linebacker Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw close to the line of scrimmage, Stafford probably thought he’d have something easy over the middle of the field. This was a four-man rush in which the 49ers plastered Stafford’s receivers all over the field, and cornerback Deommodore Lenoir jumped Stafford’s backside slant for the pick.

No matter the quarterback you’re facing, you have a better chance of beating him if your defense is creative enough to throw as many different looks at him as possible, with the discipline to have everyone together on their assignments. The Ravens and 49ers each have this on lock, and again, it’s probably not a coincidence that the two best overall teams in the Final Eight can say that about themselves.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get into both defenses, and how they’re able to switch things up at such a high level.

You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

and on Apple Podcasts.

One (potentially) fatal flaw for each remaining playoff team

Each team in the divisional round is good enough to get there, but they all have potentially fatal flaws… and here they are.

Divisional round weekend is often regarded as the best weekend in football. The best eight teams are in action to determine who will play for the respective conference championships, and usually promises four really quality football games.

Every team is in this spot for a reason, but they all have an achilles heel that, if exploited, could turn their next mistake into the final act of their season.

Win or lose, the Packers’ young guns are going out in a blaze of glory

Don’t confuse the Packers’ youth for weakness. The Green Bay Packers are a confident team that is ready for any obstacle.

Minnesota Vikings Hall of Fame defensive tackle John Randle had one of the most quotable NFL Films sound bites of all time when he yelled, “Regulators, mount up!” quoting Emilio Estevez’s Billy the Kid.

Funny enough, though, it is the hated Green Bay Packers who are the NFL’s young guns, and their sharp-shooting quarterback has them within one more shootout of getting to the NFC Championship Game.

With an average of 25.7 years of age, the Packers have the youngest roster in the NFL, but that hasn’t fazed them in the slightest. Since Week 12, their offense is second in the league in EPA per play, trailing only the San Francisco 49ers. They are also third in success rate in that time frame, and their young leader has emerged as one of the best gunslingers in the NFL.

In the final seven weeks of the season, Jordan Love was second in the NFL in EPA per dropback, and he led the NFL in CPOE. Love also finished sixth in the NFL in DYAR and DVOA (min. 200 attempts). The Utah State product has been one of the best deep ball passers this year as well, finishing fifth in deep-ball completions and third in yards off deep balls.

Love’s emergence as one of the most complete passers in the game has been the silver bullet in the revolver for the Packers’ group of youthful playmakers. Jayden Reed caught 64 passes and eight touchdowns. Romeo Doubs matched Reed’s eight touchdown catches. Dontayvion Wicks had north of 500 yards. Both Tucker Kraft and Luke Musgrave became vital parts of the intermediate passing game as well, averaging over 10 yards per catch apiece. And don’t forget about Christian Watson, who missed time with injury but averaged 15 yards per reception in the nine regular-season games he played. Every one of the Packers’ top six receivers is a rookie or in his second season — that is unheard of in terms of a team that just won a playoff game. This isn’t a group that has shaky hands when it comes time to pull the trigger; this is a motley crew of young, confident desperados who just kicked in the doors of the corral, took what they wanted and knew that there was nothing their opponents could do about it.

Now the Packers are reaching the climax of their cinematic season. They face an absolute wagon of a 49ers team that will look to exploit their 27th-ranked defense in terms of DVOA. The Packers defense hasn’t been good when it comes to early-down pass defense, and the 49ers lead the NFL in empty formations on first down, doing so 6 percent of the time. Green Bay’s defense was 26th in yards allowed per drive; the 49ers’ offense led the NFL in yards per drive.

San Francisco will look to kill the Packers with a thousand cuts. Green Bay’s defense played phenomenally against Dallas in the wild-card round, but there is a large difference between playing a Mike McCarthy offense and a Kyle Shanahan offense. The 49ers painted those end zones red, they’re going to be well rested, and they will be out to make an example of Brown County Regulators.

Metaphorically, the Packers are already pinned down and surrounded, ready to make their final stand with all odds against them. That said, this team has shown all season that they aren’t afraid of the moment. They aren’t afraid of the 49ers riding in on their white steeds ready to hold down their fort. Will they come out victorious? No one seems to like their odds. But win or lose, this iteration of the Green Bay Packers, and the young guns who lead them, are going down swinging, guns up in a blaze of glory.

Former Packers TE Mark Chmura suggests injuring Brock Purdy in divisional round

Former Packers tight end Mark Chmura suggested that his team’s best chance of winning this weekend is to injure 49ers QB Brock Purdy.

Mark Chmura played tight end for the Green Bay Packers from 1993 through 1999, made two Pro Bowls and has a Super Bowl ring. Chmura is now a sports radio personality with ESPN Milwaukee, and something he said about Green Bay’s divisional-round matchup with San Francisco regarding 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy certainly perked up a lot of ears.

Chmura seemed to suggest that a 15-yard penalty would be a worthwhile expense if the Packers defense was able to get Purdy out of the game because of injury.

“You guys are gonna think I’m crazy, a 15-yard penalty – and I don’t condone this, but I kinda do in the playoffs,” Chmura said. “A 15-yard penalty for a late hit on Brock Purdy is not a bad thing, as long as it’s worth it.”

Chmura also mentioned Green Bay’s 27-17 divisional round win against the 49ers in January 1996. The Packers were 9.5-point underdogs in that game.

“We intimidated them,” Chmura said.

Obviously you never want to condone intentional injuries, and we suspect that Chmura will have to do some backtracking on this one.