Xavier McKinney (29) and the Green Bay Packers’ defense forced a franchise-recoerd low 14 turnovers last season. The Packers are hoping for far more this season.
Getty Images
Former Kansas City Royals pitcher Bret Saberhagen pitcher had one of the most unique careers in baseball history.
Throughout the 1980s, Saberhagen was brilliant in odd-numbered years, highlighted by winning Cy Young honors in 1985 and 1989. Between 1984 and 1992, though, Saberhagen didn’t have a winning season in even-numbered years.
When it comes to the Green Bay Packers and forcing turnovers, they’ve been a lot like Saberhagen in recent years.
Hot one season, cold the next.
Green Bay was 11th in the NFL with 24 in takeaways in 2022, then fell to 23rd in 2023 with 18.
In 2024, the Packers jumped back to fourth with 31 takeaways under first-year defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley. But Green Bay plummeted to a tie for 26th under Hafley last season with just 14 takeaways, the fewest in franchise history.
The Packers’ franchise low for takeaways had been 15 in 2018.
Following the good-bad-good-bad pattern, perhaps the Packers are due for a bevy of takeaways in 2026 under new coordinator Jonathan Gannon. But even Green Bay head coach Matt LaFleur admits there hasn’t been a rhyme or reason why his team has been so up and down when it comes to takeaways.
“Yeah, I mean, I think that’s one of the secret sauces that everybody’s trying to figure out,” LaFleur said. “How do you get the ball back? Certainly, it’s been a point of emphasis, and I feel like last year we emphasized it as much, if not more, than any other year, and … they didn’t come.”
Green Bay brought back most of its same defensive pieces last season that had excelled at taking the ball away in 2024. The Packers also added star edge rusher Micah Parsons, who had an NFL-leading 60 pressures in the first 13 games.
Yet somehow, the Packers’ takeaway total dropped by 55%.
While LaFleur said Green Bay emphasized turnovers as much as ever in 2025, safety Javon Bullard felt differently.
“I think, to be honest, I just think we weren’t making a conscious effort to go and get it,” Bullard said. “It wasn’t on our minds.
“A lot of times we were just trying to make the play or get the guy down. I think now it’s being driven into our brains. You gotta get the ball. The ball, the ball, the ball. That’s all we thinking about.”
Green Bay’s defensive backs dropped their share of potential interceptions last year. So it had to be concerning when safeties Xavier McKinney and Evan Williams dropped INTs in the Packers’ Family Night scrimmage Friday.
“You get what you emphasize, you gotta be opportunistic,” new defensive pass game coordinator and secondary coach Bobby Babich said earlier this offseason. “And one of the things I tell the guys all the time is, we don’t need to chase plays, we need to put ourselves in position to make plays.
“And when that ball shows up you just better make sure that you’ve repetitioned that so much that you have been in that position and you visualized, you’ve trained it, you’ve done all of that.”
The Packers’ defense has gotten the better of the offense for much of training camp. Turnovers have fluctuated quite a bit, though.
On the second day of practice, Bullard had a sensational strip fumble of wideout Skyy Moore. That same day, though, Green Bay defenders dropped two balls from reserve quarterback Kyron Drones.
The next practice, cornerback Benjamin St-Juste had a pick six off No. 2 quarterback Tyrod Taylor. And in practice No. 6, defensive end Barryn Sorrell read a backside screen pass from Jordan Love to Josh Jacobs, intercepted the pass and returned it for a score.
There have also been days, though, where the defense has been silent on the turnover front.
“We need the ball as a defense. We trying to take the ball away at any moment,” Bullard said. “It can change games, man. It definitely changes games.”
Just ask Chicago, which led the NFL with 33 takeaways a year ago. The Bears had just 11 turnovers of their own and led league in turnover differential at +22.
Chicago outscored its opponents by just 26 points, the third-best total in the NFC North and the sixth-best mark in the conference. But the Bears’ propensity to take the ball away, and protect it, helped them win the division and reach the divisional playoffs despite ranking 29th in total defense.
“I mean, you look at who led the league in takeaways last year?” Bullard said of the Bears. “Like (expletive), it ain’t no coincidence that those guys are one of the best (inaudible) teams in the league. You just gotta take the ball away. It’s going to help your team, it’s going to help your defense, it’s going to help you win games.”
The Packers fully understand the importance of taking the ball away.
They stress it throughout practices, meetings and film study.
Actually taking the ball away, though, is an entirely different deal.
“Everything’s cyclical as long as you believe in something and you’re training something,” Babich said. “Stay the course. Maybe you’ve got to look at it, tweak something here, tweak something there, but just stay the course because once you start to panic then everything is going to start to crumble. So keep the foundation, keep the base, maybe tweak something, and then eventually those chips are going to fall where you want them to.”
Be the first to comment