Acme Packing Company
Our annual countdown starts at the beginning of the Packers’ 2024 season — a very good place to start.
Although the Green Bay Packers’ 2024 season ended sooner than Packers fans had hoped, there were still plenty of memorable moments and plays. This summer, Acme Packing Company is running down our list of the top 10 plays from last season, an exercise we have conducted annually during the summer over the last several years.
Last year, we concluded the voting on the top plays of the 2023 season with a game-changing interception by Keisean Nixon, who outsmarted Patrick Mahomes to give the Packers an upset victory over the Kansas City Chiefs. There’s no way to know for sure if us ranking Nixon’s play as #1 on our countdown led to his breakout season as a boundary cornerback in 2024, but you can’t prove that it didn’t!
This year, we’re back with 18 more games to parse through. Today we begin the countdown at #10 and we start with the team’s first big play of the entire 2024 season — one that served as a sign that a new arrival was going to make his impact felt throughout the year in a big way.
During the 2024 offseason, the Green Bay Packers made a pair of splash free agent signings. One was running back Josh Jacobs, who came in to replace Aaron Jones. The other was safety Xavier McKinney, who arrived from the New York Giants ready to play for a contending team.
McKinney looked the part of a veteran leader and a playmaking safety throughout spring practices and training camp, but all bets are off once the pads come on. But with the Packers looking to get their new-look defense under Jeff Hafley off to a good start, they were expecting McKinney to provide both steady play at safety along with some splash plays.
The Packers traveled to Brazil in week one for a date against the Philadelphia Eagles, one of the NFC’s other top contending teams. Philly collapsed down the stretch during the 2023 season, blowing a commanding division lead with a few weeks to go and unceremoniously bowing out in the Wild Card playoffs to a 9-8 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team.
Both teams came into week one desperate for a big win over a fellow conference contender to start the season off well, while McKinney in particular was surely excited to get to make his Packers debut against one of his old team’s biggest rivals.
After winning the opening coin toss and electing to receive, the Packers moved the ball across midfield and faced an early 4th-and-6 from the Eagles’ 38-yard line. A false start on right tackle Zach Tom pushed them back to 4th-and-11, leading Matt LaFleur to punt from plus-territory. Daniel Whelan put the ball out of bounds at the 10-yard line, giving Green Bay’s defense good field position on its first drive of the regular...
