Packers pay sizeable amount to deliver Giants free agent safety Xavier McKinney to coordinator Jeff Hafley

GREEN BAY – Hiring a new defensive coordinator without giving him some new tools to do the job wouldn’t have made much sense.

On Monday, the Green Bay Packers gave Jeff Hafley a sizeable gift.

The Packers have agreed to terms with New York Giants free agent safety Xavier McKinney on a four-year, $68 million deal, a source confirmed. McKinney posted on X (formerly Twitter) a cheese emoji soon after news of the deal was released.

After hiring Hafley, it became apparent the Packers were in the market for a starting safety and would be willing to spend some money to get one.

In McKinney, the Packers are getting a player who at 24 years old isn’t much older than some of the top prospects in the upcoming NFL draft. McKinney is coming off a big year in which he had 116 tackles, 11 pass breakups and three interceptions.

A second-round draft pick in 2020 out of Alabama, McKinney has connections with new defensive passing game coordinator Derrick Ansley, who was a defensive backs coach for the Crimson Tide from 2016-’17.

What's more, the Packers were extremely high on McKinney coming out of college and had done a lot of work on him because there was a chance he would be available to them. However, the Packers traded up from No. 30 in the first round and selected quarterback Jordan Love.

McKinney was taken No. 36 by the Giants.

At 6-0, 207 pounds, McKinney isn’t a speedster – he ran the 40-yard dash at 4.63 seconds at the combine – but he has a 36-inch vertical leap and played fast enough that he was used in the slot at Alabama. He has the size to play in the box but likely will be used as a single deep safety in Hafley’s Cover 3 defense.

Though he has missed 18 games in four seasons – including eight due to a broken hand in a 2022 ATV accident during the bye week – he played all 17 games his second and fourth seasons.

In 2021, he had 93 tackles, five interceptions and 10 passes broken up. In ’23, he played every defensive snap for the Giants.

McKinney became the top safety prospect after Tampa Bay put the franchise tag on Antoine Winfield Jr. and he appears to have benefited greatly. The Giants and Eagles were reportedly interested in signing him and a source said the Giants put on a full-court press to try to get him back.

The $17 million a year puts him in the top five among highest-paid safeties in the NFL.

The Packers were moving on from starting free safety Darnell Savage, who over five seasons never became the player they thought they were getting in the first round. Two others who started last year − Jonathan Owens and Rudy Ford − are free agents and so the only viable player they had at the position was rookie Anthony Johnson Jr.

In Hafley's defense, the safety position is vitally important. There has to be a player who can start in the middle of the field and is athletic enough to reach both sidelines because often the other safety is up in the box playing the run.

It's possible the Packers will bring Owens back, but it will likely depend on how much they're willing to pay and what he can get on the open market. Owens had a solid year both at safety and on special teams.