Green Bay Packers: Insider Shares How Xavier McKinney Exchange Led Him to Believe at Least 1 Player Knew Micah Parsons Trade Was Coming

By the time he got around to asking McKinney, who shares Parsons’ agent, his antennae were plenty perked. “He looked at me, and he goes, ‘I’m not going there, but Micah’s a great player, and a great dude,’ and he smiled at me, which told me that he might know something was in the works as well,” Demovsky said.

McKinney’s quotes circulated widely, but especially now, with the benefit of retrospect, those nonverbal cues omitted from quoted text seem all the more significant.

No doubt McKinney is excited to have Parsons bearing down on opposing passers in front of him. Those extra pressures and quarterback hits should lead to more rushed or wobbly throws, creating pickoff opportunities for the NFL’s second-leading ball hawk last season: McKinney’s eight interceptions trailed only Detroit’s Kerby Joseph.

With Parsons on the front lines and McKinney patrolling the secondary, the Packers defense should be one of the NFC’s strongest. After the Eagles won the Super Bowl with a dominant pass rush, bolstering their own units became an urgent item on every contender’s agenda. The Packers actually went out and did it by adding the best edge rusher in the conference, curing the roster’s primary weakness.

To get him, all they gave up from the current unit was defensive tackle Kenny Clark, an All-Pro in his own right but no match for an asset like Parsons. With the level of excitement this move brings to fans and the entire state of Wisconsin, credit McKinney for holding in the beans with such a deadpan response.