NFL Week 15 injury fallout: Micah Parsons, Patrick Mahomes

Even in a sport where the risk of serious injury on any given play is part of the business, Sunday delivered a pair of franchise-altering, league-shifting knee injuries.

As he was attempting to drive the Chiefs into range for what could have been a season-saving field goal against the Chargers, Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL, bringing an end to the most frustrating season of the two-time MVP quarterback's career. Hours later, in the middle of a wildly entertaining game with the Broncos, Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons is believed to have suffered the same injury while attempting to chase down quarterback Bo Nix. In addition to overshadowing perhaps the finest game of Nix's young pro career, the Parsons injury casts a pall on Green Bay's chances of competing for a Super Bowl this season, months after it traded two first-round picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark to acquire Parsons from the Cowboys.

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As much as I would love to write about Nix or Philip Rivers or the relay-team pick-six the Ravens put together or the battle between the Bills and Patriots in Foxborough, the biggest story certainly is the season-ending knee injuries for two future Hall of Famers and what they mean for their respective teams and the rest of the league. The injury to Parsons means more for the Packers in 2025 than the Mahomes injury does to his team, as the Chiefs' playoff hopes were already hanging by a thin thread (and Kansas City has now been eliminated). But Mahomes' injury creates all kinds of questions about what the Chiefs look like when the QB does return to the lineup.

I'll start there, with an organization that was already facing a very significant offseason before the stakes were raised even higher.

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Mahomes and the Chiefs
Parsons and the Packers

What Mahomes' injury means for the Chiefs

What already felt like rock bottom for Chiefs fans hit a new low Sunday afternoon. Having lost four of their prior five games and needing a late comeback to claim their only victory since the start of November, the Chiefs were trailing in the latest of their must-win games, with the Chargers holding a 16-13 lead. The Chiefs had scored an early touchdown before spending the rest of the game struggling to move the football, but Mahomes had gotten the offense past midfield and within striking distance of a potential game-tying field goal. The air of invincibility was long gone, but the hope that Mahomes would conjure something out of nothing and keep the Chiefs alive for another quarter or another week until the old Chiefs somehow appeared hadn't been extinguished.

And then, suddenly, even that was gone when Mahomes left the game with his knee injury. While backup Gardner Minshew managed to turn a first-and-20 into a new set of downs, he threw an interception to Derwin James Jr., ending the game. But even if Minshew had been able to lead a late comeback, the season was essentially over when Mahomes went down injured.

And even if Mahomes had stayed healthy and played through the end of the season, this version of the Chiefs seemed broken on offense. Advanced metrics were more optimistic about the Chiefs than their record indicated, but Kansas City had pieced together just one above-average offensive performance over the past six games — a loss to a Cowboys team whose defensive turnaround has been greatly overstated. There was no clear-cut culprit like the historically bad drop rate at wide receiver in 2023. The offense just wasn't getting better; if anything, after a brief burst at midseason, it was getting worse.

Two things came to mind immediately after the injury. One was the nature of how the Chiefs had survived when the offense had struggled, both early in the season and as recently as the first quarter of this game against the Chargers. Mahomes had always been an excellent scrambler, but he had typically leaned into scrambling in the postseason, when the games were more meaningful and there was simply less football ahead before the opportunity to rest during the offseason.

Before 2025, Mahomes averaged 2.5 scrambles per game during the regular season, and that figure rose to 3.3 during the postseason. They were high-value plays for the Chiefs, especially in the playoffs, where huge scrambles by Mahomes at the right time had played significant roles in dramatic wins over the Titans and Eagles.

Through Sunday, Mahomes had averaged 3.8 scrambles per game in 2025, including the 12-yard touchdown run that gave the Chiefs their only touchdown Sunday. And while that might not seem like an enormous difference, all scrambles aren't created equal. Scrambling into wide-open spaces only when they're available and sliding down without being touched is one thing, but Mahomes was often scrambling out of necessity this season, trying to move the ball in tight quarters. He was taking hits at the end of his runs, often because the Chiefs needed every one of those yards to pick up first downs or touchdowns when the offense was struggling.

Including sacks and quarterback knockdowns, Mahomes had been hit 153 times this season, a figure topped only by Justin Herbert, the quarterback on the other side of the field Sunday. That was a career-high through 14 games. A year ago — with an offense that also needed to be jolted back to life amid a lack of playmaking talent and dismal left tackle play — Mahomes was hit 147 times through his first 14 games. But across his six prior seasons as a starter, Mahomes took an average of 117.6 hits in his first 14 games of each season.

The 30-year-old has been hit 27% more often over the past two years than he had over his first six seasons as an NFL starter. Throw 40 more hits across three games in the 2024 postseason, and you get the idea. It's impossible to prove that correlation is causation here, and quarterbacks can suffer traumatic injuries without taking loads of hits, but Mahomes had essentially been playing all of 2025 like it was a playoff game. We can't fault the legendary quarterback for trying to win, of course, but it's just incredibly difficult to get hit the way he has for two years without missing time or suffering injuries.

The other thing I noticed was the name that came out over the PA as the cameras zoomed in on Mahomes. As the crowd came to a hush in Kansas City, I'm not sure anyone paid attention to the referees announcing a holding call on No. 72. That's Chukwuebuka Godrick, a 25-year-old rookie recruited through the league's international pathway program who was making his NFL debut. Godrick was forced onto the field after offensive tackle Jaylon Moore suffered a knee injury on the second snap of the game. (Moore attempted to return to the game but reinjured the knee in the second quarter and didn't appear after halftime.)

Chargers fans won't have much sympathy given what they've gone through at offensive tackle, but for the second year in a row, the Chiefs were stuck in December with tackles they couldn't possibly have wanted to play meaningful football this season. Last year, they rotated through Kingsley Suamataia, Wanya Morris and D.J. Humphries at left tackle before pushing Joe Thuney outside, which led to a disastrous appearance in the Super Bowl.

By the time Mahomes got hurt Sunday, the Chiefs had lost their top four tackles in Josh Simmons, Jawaan Taylor, Moore and Morris. Godrick was playing right tackle in his NFL debut, while the left tackle was Esa Pole — who made his first appearance as a pro last week after Morris went down injured on the opening snap against the Texans.

For GM Brett Veach, this was the nightmare scenario that his 2025 offseason had attempted to avoid. Left tackle has been a revolving door for the Chiefs since Eric Fisher‘s departure, as they cycled through Orlando Brown Jr., Donovan Smith and then the 2024 cast before turning things over to Simmons, their first-round pick in the 2025 draft. Moore was the most expensive swing tackle in the NFL, a two-year, $30 million insurance policy in case Simmons or Taylor was unable to go. In a pinch, the Chiefs still had Morris, whom the organization trotted out for most of 2024 at left tackle, but they wouldn't actually need to call upon their fourth option at tackle, right?

Well, that plan didn't work. Nobody could have anticipated that Morris and Moore would go down on the opening series of games in consecutive weeks. Simmons dislocated his wrist against the Cowboys. Taylor hadn't missed a single game due to injury as a pro before going down with triceps and knee issues several weeks ago. Veach planned for what he thought could be the worst, and the 2025 season just laughed.

Devoting meaningful resources to even further depth at OT wouldn't have been a realistic or thoughtful use of assets. But the Chiefs didn't address some of the fundamental issues with their offensive infrastructure after the 2024 season. Those concerns have to be resolved by the time Mahomes returns to the lineup, because there are no guarantees they'll be getting the same Mahomes back, especially at first.

Mahomes' timetable for returning in 2026 will be unclear until he undergoes surgery. It's entirely possible that he's not ready to start next season on the active roster, which would force the Chiefs to begin with another quarterback under center and prioritize the backup role this offseason as a result. Since Chad Henne's retirement in 2022, the Chiefs have cycled through Blaine Gabbert, Carson Wentz and most recently Minshew as veteran options. Andy Reid prioritized adding a developmental backup in the draft during his time with the Eagles and eventually landed meaningful value in trades for QBs like Kevin Kolb and A.J. Feeley, but the Chiefs haven't drafted a quarterback since selecting Mahomes in 2017.

Regardless of when Mahomes returns, quarterbacks respond to knee injuries differently, and just about everybody takes some time to settle in. Tom Brady tore his ACL in Week 1 of the 2008 season, giving him three extra months to heal relative to Mahomes, and still didn't look like his usual self in 2009, posting what would be his worst interception rate in a single season. It's entirely possible that Mahomes, who relies far more on movement and extending plays than Brady did, struggles with his footwork and consistency even more acutely, which could lead to accuracy issues.

Will Mahomes come back with the same style of play? At 30, he might have already been slowing down and leaning less into the extended plays and out-of-structure creativity that served as his calling card as he ascended to the top of the NFL hierarchy. Mahomes' scrambles in 2025 were more north-south in nature, designed to pick up yardage as opposed to moving laterally and extending plays while hoping for someone to get open.

Will the Chiefs strongly discourage Mahomes from playing that way? Quarterbacks are going to do their own thing once they get on the field, but do you remember the last time Mahomes suffered a knee injury? In 2019, Reid called for a Mahomes sneak near the goal line, only for his third-year quarterback to suffer a dislocated kneecap. Mahomes came back after two games, but Reid was so scarred by the injury that he has refused to call a Mahomes sneak again, even in the highest-profile situations.

The Chiefs have still used Mahomes on speed options, even after he suffered a concussion running parallel to the line in the postseason against the Browns, and I'm not sure Reid is going to be able to fully discourage Mahomes from scrambling. But the balance has to shift. It would be a real shock if we saw the Mahomes who was scrambling as a necessity throughout the 2025 season again, at least during the regular season.

Kansas City simply can't ask Mahomes to do as much as he has over the past two seasons, particularly when it comes to absorbing hits and putting his body on the line. It hasn't produced consistently effective offenses and might have led to this. The only way to protect Mahomes is to build the rest of the offense up and ensure that the Chiefs don't need to rely on him putting himself in harm's way to win, at least on a weekly basis.

The Chiefs were already going to be thinking about the evolution of this offense during the offseason, where they were facing a series of important decisions. Now, with Mahomes suffering a serious injury, the Chiefs both need to take backup quarterback more seriously and will feel even more pressure to nail their next steps around the QB. Here's what's coming up for Kansas City and how the Mahomes injury affects them:

1. What does the end of the Travis Kelce era mean for reimagining the tight end room? The offense hasn't found consistency since Kelce faded after the 2023 season. He was incredible in 2022, when the Chiefs were able to build their post-Tyreek Hill offense around his mind meld with Mahomes and ability to beat both zone (by identifying and exploiting space in coverages) and man (by running away from linebackers or outmuscling defensive backs) coverages alike.

Kelce was still very good on a per-route basis in 2023, but he declined as the season went along. He was 18th in yards per route run among tight ends in 2024, and while that has jumped up to eighth in 2025, Kelce has also dropped a league-high nine passes — three of which led to Mahomes interceptions. And while Kelce was never going to the Hall of Fame for his blocking, there have been more notable rough patches for him there, most notably in the Super Bowl loss to the Eagles.

For that production, the Chiefs have paid Kelce just over $17 million per year between 2024 and 2025, a figure that would be out of line if the guy receiving it wasn't a franchise icon and a surefire Hall of Famer. Any other player would have been released or asked to take a significant pay cut heading into 2025. But given that Kelce was already considering retiring before returning for this season, I'm not sure there was ever a realistic scenario where the Chiefs could have asked or expected their legendary tight end to come back for a fraction of what he was owed.

Kelce's contract expires after the season, though, and if he does return for one more go-around, it won't be at that price tag. Noah Gray has struggled with drops recently, but on a three-year, $18 million deal, the Chiefs would probably keep their 2021 fifth-round pick around for another season as the second tight end. Jared Wiley, selected in the fourth round of the 2024 draft, has two catches in nine games over two pro campaigns.

So whom do the Chiefs replace Kelce with as their primary tight end? And what does that mean for their offense? It's tempting to try to find a like-for-like replacement, but Kelce's one of the most unique players in recent league history. The Chiefs aren't going to be able to acquire someone like Brock Bowers or Trey McBride. Kyle Pitts Sr. is a pending free agent, but he's not the same sort of improviser as Kelce, and his blocking isn't up to even Kelce's standards. If he keeps having three-touchdown games down the stretch, the Falcons might even choose to franchise him.

This has been the year of offenses leaning into bigger personnel groupings, and progressive units are playing 13 personnel (1 RB, 3 TEs, 1 WR) and/or six offensive lineman sets more often than they have in years. Reid didn't invent going bigger, but leaning heavily into 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TEs, 2 WRs) was one of the ways the Chiefs survived after trading away Hill, using the larger groupings to manipulate defensive personnel, reduce the scope of the defensive playbook and create checks they could exploit with Kelce.

Could the Chiefs lean into that and go with quantity over quality? Going after two or even three tight ends this offseason might be a way for them to replace Kelce in the lineup, if not necessarily his role in the offense. Veach could pursue tight end help earlier than he typically would in the draft, although the league's thirst for tight ends during the aforementioned personnel shift might cause players at a perennially underrated position to get pushed up the board.

The other option would be to evolve the offense away from a Kelce-like presence at tight end and spread the field more consistently, which would either be behind the curve or ahead of it, depending on whether you think those shifts to bigger personnel groupings have peaked. It's telling that the Chiefs left Simmons on an island more often than any other left tackle in the NFL this season while he was in the lineup, per NFL Next Gen Stats. If the Chiefs have two tackles they trust in pass protection and don't need to chip or keep a sixth player in to block, that would allow Reid to consistently get five eligibles out into routes. That hasn't always been the case over the past few years when the line hasn't been right.

2. What do the Chiefs do at right tackle? The Chiefs are $34 million over the projected cap in 2026. They'll get under that figure by restructuring contracts, most notably with Mahomes, who has a whopping $78.2 million cap hit on the books next year. I've expected the Chiefs would use 2026 as the year to renegotiate Mahomes' record-setting 10-year, $450 million deal, and while the ACL tear will create some uncertainty, I would be shocked if it changed the long-term plans in Kansas City. The Chiefs will work off Josh Allen‘s six-year, $330 million contract with the Bills as a baseline for Mahomes' new pact when it happens.

The Chiefs will have to decide whether they want to give cornerback Trent McDuffie a new contract, and they'll likely move on from Kristian Fulton after a disappointing stint. But the one big contract that might come up for discussion is at right tackle. Taylor is owed $20 million in the final year of his deal, none of which is guaranteed. That's top-tier right tackle money, and given his penalty issues, Taylor is more like a solid starter than someone challenging for Pro Bowl honors.

Cutting Taylor would free up $20 million and open up a spot in the starting lineup for Moore, who would take over at right tackle in the second year of his two-year contract. It would create a hole at swing tackle, but Veach would address that with some of the savings by moving on from Taylor. Suamataia could also move to right tackle, but that would just open up a different hole in the starting lineup at left guard.

3. Can Reid piece together a running game? The other way the Chiefs thrived after losing Hill was by working their way into a more physical rushing attack. Veach built a strong interior line through Joe Thuney and hit on draftees Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith. And while Clyde Edwards-Helaire was a bust as the team's 2020 first-round pick at running back, Isiah Pacheco‘s vicious running style quickly gave teams who defended the Chiefs with light boxes and two deep safeties something to worry about.

Pacheco played a valuable role on the 2022 and 2023 teams, but after fracturing his fibula in 2024, he hasn't been the same caliber of player. Reid briefly turned to Carson Steele before in 2024 bringing back Kareem Hunt, who had been cut by the organization in 2018 after kicking and shoving a woman. Hunt has been excellent in short-yardage situations over the past two seasons, but he has shown virtually no explosiveness and has just one run over 20 yards across 348 attempts in Kansas City.

While the Chiefs rank eighth in success rate on early-down designed runs over that timeframe, they're 20th in EPA per play on those carries. The threat of Mahomes has the Chiefs running into very friendly boxes, which should make life easier for their backs. They've also had at least two Pro Bowl-caliber linemen on the interior for most of that stretch in Humphrey and Smith. Frankly, the Chiefs have settled for mediocre running back play for too long, perhaps in part because they were burned by the attempt to make a more significant investment at the position in Edwards-Helaire, who ended up being a replacement-level back.

Veach wasn't naive to those concerns, as the Chiefs reportedly negotiated with the Jets to acquire running back Breece Hall at the deadline. The deal didn't come to fruition after Kansas City refused to send a third-round pick to acquire the pending free agent, which would have been a disaster given what has happened with Mahomes.

The Chiefs can go after Hall if he hits free agency this offseason, and backs like Rico Dowdle, Travis Etienne Jr. and Javonte Williams currently project to be on the market after impressive 2025 campaigns. No matter what the Chiefs do, this isn't a place where Veach can run things back with the same names and faces in 2026. Pacheco and Hunt will both be free agents, and a fresh start atop the depth chart would make sense for the Chiefs.

4. Do the Chiefs evolve schematically and stylistically? As the Chiefs have struggled in 2025, more of the fan base has criticized Reid's offense for being behind the cutting edge or remaining more stagnant than others around the NFL. Fans are always going to criticize offenses that aren't racking up 30 points per game, especially when they have a generational player at quarterback, so I'm a little hesitant to lean into those complaints myself. Everybody is going to have a bad playcall or two at the wrong time; that's just the reality of the NFL.

Is Reid's offense really behind the times? I'm not sure. Reid's a world-class game planner and has an incredible aptitude for picking apart opposing defensive rules with motions, shifts and other schematic choices. The offense had seemingly reduced itself in scope and turned into a quick game-intensive attack between 2023 and 2024, but that was partly a product of losing Hill and then having a sieve at left tackle. The Chiefs have had plenty of deep opportunities in 2025, but frankly, the offense just hasn't done a great job of executing in those spots, with Mahomes, the receivers and the pass protection each to blame at different times.

I'd love to see the Chiefs evolve their offensive philosophy a bit. We've seen teams lean into going under center, where there's more of a threat of hard play-action, and it's easier to get into more of the gap scheme runs that have flourished around the league in recent years. The Chiefs have generally resisted that trend and stuck in the shotgun, where they typically lean into zone runs and RPOs. They have seemingly been less effective over the past couple of years, and that approach will be harder with Mahomes recovering from a knee injury.

I've seen calls for Reid's job from the most virulent of Chiefs fans on social media, and while there are about 25 fan bases who want to fire their coaches on any given week, the Chiefs aren't firing Reid. They shouldn't, either. Even if we reframe this around the possibility of the legendary coach retiring, which great offensive mind would the Chiefs hire to replace Reid? The top offensive assistant on Dan Graziano's list of potential coaching candidates is Matt Nagy, who happens to be Reid's assistant. Guys like Joe Brady, Klint Kubiak and Arthur Smith are either unproven or have had their own issues in stops around the league. Mike McCarthy? Doug Pederson? Are they really going to be upgrades on Reid?

Any coach would want to work with Mahomes, but team owners aren't going to let their coaches go to Kansas City out of the kindness of their hearts. Acquiring someone like Mike Tomlin or John Harbaugh would cost draft capital, and those organizations aren't going to want to make life easier for the Chiefs if Reid retires. The Chiefs probably aren't in position to deal a Jon Gruden-sized haul to acquire a coach, even if the right one became available.

What's more realistic, perhaps, is Reid bringing somebody into the organization to serve as a fresh voice as an offensive assistant. The Chiefs don't need wholesale changes. They're not starting over. They're seventh in EPA per play over the past two seasons, which would be great for any team that doesn't have the best quarterback of his generation in the prime of his career. Mahomes has carried the Chiefs over the past two years, and we saw the diminishing returns of those efforts throughout a frustrating 2025 season. Now, it's time for the Chiefs to ensure that Mahomes won't need to put his body on the line as often when he returns in 2026.

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What Parsons' injury means for the Packers

As they flew home from Denver on Sunday night, the Packers might have felt like a Super Bowl was slipping through their fingers. Just as Green Bay was getting healthier late in the season, injuries collapsed one of the league's most complete teams. Parsons is likely done for the year with a torn ACL. Christian Watson, who has looked like a star receiver for stretches since returning from his own ACL injury, went down with a chest injury on a Jordan Love interception and did not return. Right tackle Zach Tom was injured in the second quarter and didn't play in the second half, while safety Evan Williams wasn't able to play in the fourth quarter after suffering a knee injury.

With the likes of Tucker Kraft, Elgton Jenkins and Devonte Wyatt already on injured reserve, the Packers are staring down the threat of another postseason without multiple starters on both sides of the football. GM Brian Gutekunst's draft-and-develop philosophy generally leads the Packers to one of the deepest rosters in the league, but as we saw in last season's playoff loss to the Eagles, even that depth has its limits.

Gutekunst's stunning move to trade two first-round picks and Kenny Clark to acquire Parsons before the season both went against type and served as an announcement that the Packers weren't just accumulating talent. Factoring in a record-setting contract as part of the trade, Gutekunst was making an enormous bet that Parsons was going to be among the very best players in football over the next few seasons.

As teams trading for players like Khalil Mack and Jamal Adams have shown in years past, it's difficult for that bet to pay off. Trading unknown future picks for known superstars is great on paper, and there have been times (mostly involving the Rams) where it has worked, but the bar for success is extremely high. With the implied value of the draft picks sent to the Cowboys included, the Packers are paying Parsons the equivalent of $65 million per season over the next four years.

There's nothing inherently wrong with making that sort of move, but anything short of being the best player in the NFL is going to make that contract difficult to swallow. It's also putting a dramatic amount of the budget — between actual cash and draft capital — into one player staying both healthy and productive. Spreading the money and draft capital around throughout the roster means a team is less susceptible to one big injury than by concentrating so many resources into one player. Parsons' upside is such that I can (and still do) understand why the tradeoff would be worth it, but this is the football equivalent of putting a lot of your eggs in one basket.

To the extent that any non-quarterback can live up to that sort of price tag, Parsons was holding his own in Green Bay. He had 12.5 sacks in 14 games with the Packers, an even more impressive number when we consider that he was playing only in a part-time role early in the season after joining the Packers in August. Parsons led the league with 83 pressures, and his 34 quick pressures were second in the NFL behind Nik Bonitto. He wasn't going to win Defensive Player of the Year, given that Myles Garrett is currently producing one of the great defensive seasons in NFL history, but Parsons would have been competing with Will Anderson Jr. for the second edge rusher spot on the All-Pro team.

While the splits with and without Parsons weren't quite as significant as they were during his time with the Cowboys, we also saw a pretty significant split in Green Bay's pass defense with their star edge rusher on and off the field. With him in the lineup, the Packers allowed the league's 10th-lowest QBR to opposing quarterbacks. Across 109 dropbacks without him this season, the Packers fell to 22nd by that same metric.

What Parsons gave coordinator Jeff Hafley and the defense, really, was protection. The weak link on the Green Bay defense is at cornerback, where Nate Hobbs has been alternately injured and disappointing as the team's biggest free agent addition on defense. Keisean Nixon and Carrington Valentine struggle with consistency, and while Javon Bullard has had a very good second season working in the slot, the roughest games for the Packers defense have typically come when their corners have been exposed.

The Packers defense ranks 26th in the league in Total QBR when it doesn't get home with pressure on the opposing quarterback. Now, without Parsons, the pressure rate will inevitably drop. Players like Lukas Van Ness and Kingsley Enagbare have looked imposing at times across from Parsons, but they'll see more attention without Green Bay's best defender in the lineup.

One way to respond to those pressure concerns would be to send more bodies, something Hafley has been able to mostly avoid this season because of Parsons. The Packers send four or fewer rushers on nearly 80% of opposing dropbacks, the fifth-highest rate in the NFL. Despite dropping seven or more into coverage on the vast majority of snaps, the Packers still manage to get pressure on just under 35% of dropbacks, which is the eighth-best rate in the league. Every one of the teams ahead of the Packers in pressure rate also blitz more often than Green Bay.

When the Packers do blitz, their 53.8% pressure rate is second best, trailing only the Seahawks. Parsons plays a huge role in these pressures and creating opportunities for his teammates. Hafley knows that teams are terrified of what Parsons is going to do on every snap, and his presence can essentially serve as an indicator for what offenses will do in pass protection and what the Packers can do to break those rules. I'm skeptical that their blitz pressure rate will keep up without Parsons if the Packers lean further into sending extra pressure.

Hafley's sim pressures (which aren't technically always blitzes) have gotten more imposing as the season has wore on, and Parsons has created havoc on stunts and twists, with offensive linemen worried about letting him through and in turn allowing Green Bay's other rushers to run free in the process. Hafley didn't have the sort of time a coordinator would want to build the game plan around Parsons, given that the Packers acquired their new star only days before the season began. The Packers were getting better at maximizing Parsons, though. Now, all of that comes to a halt.

Parsons and the increased pressure rate were also covering for an issue the Packers have dealt with throughout the season: a lack of turnovers. Led by Xavier McKinney‘s eight interceptions, the Pack forced 31 turnovers in 2024, the fourth most of any team. On a drive-by-drive basis, only the Bills and Vikings forced more turnovers than the Packers, who turned 16.4% of opposing possessions into takeaways.

Turnover rates can fluctuate from year to year, though, and the Packers have forced only 13 in 14 games this season. They're ending just 9.1% of drives in turnovers, which has the Pack all the way down in 23rd, right ahead of the Vikings (who are dealing with the same year-to-year variance). The defense is recovering fumbles at about the same rate, but it is forcing fumbles about half as often as it did a year ago.

The bigger problem is that Green Bay has only seven interceptions in 14 games. One of those was Nixon's interception to seal up last week's win over the Bears, which was obviously a huge play, but Hafley's unit felt those missing picks in the loss to the Broncos. Bo Nix had his best game as a pro, going 23-of-34 for 302 yards with four touchdowns, but he also left a few balls in dangerous areas for the Packers. He threw two near-interceptions on the drive in which Parsons suffered his ACL injury, and Carrington Valentine dropped a third with 5:47 to go. When things are going well — as they were in 2024 — those throws turn into interceptions. When they aren't — as has been the case for this secondary in 2025 — they fall harmlessly to the ground.

The Packers have dropped from third in interception rate in 2024 to 26th this season. If there's a way they're going to overcome the Parsons injury, it's probably going to be through that turnover rate spiking back toward where it was in 2024. We've already seen much of the same key personnel produce an excellent takeaway rate in 2024, and the randomness of turnover rates is such that a team could go three months with a middling figure and then suddenly jump over the final few games of the season. The Eagles had 16 takeaways through their first 14 games a year ago and then racked up 23 over their final seven matchups, including 13 across their four-game run to the Super Bowl. The Packers could have that sort of late-season spree in them.

Parsons and his pressure should have made it easier to force those turnovers, though, so it'll be tougher to create takeaways without the superstar on the field. The combination of a Parsons-led rush and a turnover spike would have given the Packers a truly terrifying defense the rest of the way. And while Parsons is young enough at 26 to make an impact for years to come even after returning from the ACL tear, the Packers were least likely to feel the pain of missing out on those picks in 2025, given that the selections don't come off their books and won't be missing from the roster until 2026 and beyond.

This wasn't a one-year, all-in trade by any means, but the Packers were a Super Bowl-caliber team with Parsons in the mix. Now, suddenly, things are much tougher for the Packers in the NFC.