Remember when the Packers let Jaire Alexander walk during the off-season, setting off a widespread gnashing of teeth across Green Bay fandom? Don’t look now, but it turns out the Packers’ cornerback room is pretty good even without Ja.

And the safeties are pretty darn good, too.

Heading to play a Browns offense averaging just 16.5 points per game (26th in the NFL), Green Bay looks poised to do more damage against a quarterback in Joe Flacco who is not just a statue in the pocket, but an elderly one. (Can you imagine Flacco trying to run from Micah Parsons? Sorry, I digress.)

Against the Washington Commanders last Thursday, Keisean Nixon played 14 snaps in man coverage. Five passes came his way, to the tune of zero receptions. All five of those incompletions were pass breakups on Nixon’s part, including a fourth-down breakup late in the game to help seal the win. 

Meanwhile, however much stock you put into Pro Football Focus grades, it’s still better to have a good grade than a bad one. On the very young season, Nixon has an 85.2 PFF coverage grade over 136 snaps – tied for first with the Jets’ Sauce Gardner, who is, well, pretty good.

Suddenly, it seems like a really long time ago that Nixon told reporters he didn’t want to return kicks anymore as the “CB1,” raising eyebrows across the country.

On the other outside corner is Carrington Valentine, the former seventh-round draft pick out of Kentucky. Valentine showed flashes as a rookie, exhibited tremendous growth last year, and even had an impressive interception in the end zone in a Week 15 tilt with the Seahawks.

Through two weeks this season, he is graded at 79.3 in coverage by PFF, good for seventh in the NFL.

Nate Hobbs, the off-season acquisition by General Manager Brian Gutekunst, is back in the fold after sitting out most of training camp and Week 1 with an injury. Over just 36 defensive snaps, his PFF coverage grade sits at 71.3, which is about six points shy of making the Top 10.

Rookie Micah Robinson hasn’t played any snaps yet, but he looked the part in the preseason, and during his final year at Tulane, he was graded at 80.7 in coverage and a 90 in run defense. Kamal Hadden, who also hasn’t seen a snap yet, had similarly high grades in college.

Meanwhile, Javon Bullard, who often slides into the slot, just had one of the better games of his young career against the Commanders, with five solo tackles and a crushing hit on a scrambling Jayden Daniels over 58 snaps.

Obviously, Bo Melton is currently injured and is still learning the position, but he’s got corner speed and seems to be quickly developing the instincts to play the position after spending his career as a wide receiver.

One obvious difference is that so far this season, the pass rush is getting home consistently – the Micah Parsons effect is on full display. His presence is making the defensive front better, which translates to making life easier on the cover guys. If the goal was to get consistent pressure with four, it looks like the Packers are on their way to achieving that goal. And that only bodes well for the overall defense. And it doesn’t hurt that there’s an All-Pro safety named Xavier McKinney patrolling the back end of the D.

Add in the Jeff Hafley effect, which has yellow helmets flying to the ball like buzzards to carrion, and there’s the makings of a complete defense. So far, the Packers' defense is ranked third in the league with 189.5 passing yards allowed per game. Again, a disclaimer: It’s only Week 3. But the Packers’ players and coaches sure seem to believe.

“I thought he played really good on Thursday night,” Haffley said of Nixon this week at his weekly press conference. “And now he needs to do that going forward. He has to do that over and over and over and over again, and that’s the sign of a great corner.”

“At the end of the day, that’s one game,” Nixon told Packers.com. “I want to do it every week. … My confidence is always through the roof.”