The Green Bay Packers took the NFL by surprise last season. No one truly knew what to expect as they transitioned away from Aaron Rodgers and dove towards the new Jordan Love era in Wisconsin. A playoff win over the Dallas Cowboys in the Wild Card Round and a near Divisional Round victory over the San Francisco 49ers were not on the menu.

Love proved he's a franchise quarterback, so the Packers had to move with gusto this offseason to keep the positive momentum going. One addition they made in free agency accomplishes that goal. That would be them signing safety Xavier McKinney away from the New York Giants.

But letting star running back Aaron Jones go in free agency doesn't. Those decisions signal the Packers' best and worst moves to start free agency.

Best move: signing Xavier McKinney

Saftey has been a glaring need for the Packers for a few seasons now. Luckily for them, they were able to snag perhaps the best safety to hit the open market this offseason in McKinney.

McKinney is a flat-out playmaker, and that's something the Packers have lacked at that position since Nick Collins retired. Over his four year career across 49 games, he has nine interceptions, with one of those going for a score.

In addition to that, McKinney has 29 career pass deflections. But it isn't just the counting stats where McKinney makes an impact in the secondary. Last season, PFF graded him as having the best coverage grade, and the fourth-best overall grade along with 52.1 passer rating allowed. He's just a flat-out great player.

McKinney doesn't just excel as a coverage safety either. He's more than willing to help out in the run game and make open-field tackles. He had 116 tackles, which was by far a career-high. PFF gave him the third-best tackling grade among safeties as well.

Remember that fourth down pass from Kirk Cousins to TJ Hockenson in the 2022 Wild Card game against the Giants that was well short of the line to gain? Guess who made the tackle to effectively end the game. That's right, it was McKinney.

The Packers hoped that Darnell Savage would be their dynamic safety, but things haven't exactly worked out for both parties. The Packers were right to look for an upgrade. In one more NFL season and 23 fewer games, Savage has the same amount of interceptions as McKinney and just five fewer pass deflections. It's pretty clear that McKinney is an upgrade and why they chose to pay him over Savage, who signed a deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

McKinney is a great player. Players like him don't typically hit the open market very often. That the Packers were able to not only capitalize on it but sign a marquee player at a position of need was a home run move on their part.

Worst move: letting Aaron Jones go

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The Packers shifted their running back room by letting their star running back walk in free agency in favor of Josh Jacobs. It's a reasonable move. Jacobs is more than two years younger than Jones and can handle a bigger workload than Jones. In five seasons, Jacobs already has more carries (1,305) than Jones does (1,177) in seven seasons.

But Jones is still the superior player on a per-touch basis. Last season, Jones averaged 3.76 yards created per touch, 5.2 yards per touch, and 1.85 yards per route run, via playerprofiler.com. In Jacobs' monster 2022 season that saw him register over 2,000 yards of offense, he averaged 3.14 yards created per touch, 5.2 yards per touch, and 1.24 yards per route run.

Health and age were key reasons why the Packers chose to make this swap at running back, and it makes sense. But Jones is still an elite running back, and by letting him go, Green Bay opened the door for him to go to a rival.

That's exactly what he did by signing with the Minnesota Vikings. It remains to be seen just how much the Packers will come to rue that decision to let Jones go.