The Green Bay Packers hammered out extensions this offseason with players like Christian Watson and Jayden Reed. Tight end Tucker Kraft could be next. However, cornerback Keisean Nixon is a bit lost a bit in the shuffle — at least on the outside.
Keisean Nixon is entering the final year of his deal at age 29. Does extending the veteran make sense at this moment?
Nixon was under fire for some wishy-washy play in 2026. If you didn’t watch the games and just took the word of the internet at face value, you’d think Nixon is the worst cornerback in the NFL.
The truth is, he wasn’t as bad as many made him out to be. Still, he was a far cry from being the No. 1 cornerback he believes he is and can be.
Nixon also has a knack for making — or more specifically, not making — plays that are easy to get frustrated about. Take, for instance, his unnecessary roughness penalty against Chicago’s Luther Burden last December, which served as a springboard for what became a scoring drive for the Bears.
Or in the playoffs, once more against the Bears, when running back D’Andre Swift was heading towards the end zone. Nixon appeared to be in position to make a play at the last second, but instead he bowed out of the way and all but ushered Swift into the end zone.
Plays like that have many Packers fans soured on Nixon. There’s another side to this, though.
Green Bay addressed that cornerback need this offseason by using its first pick in the draft, in the second round, on cornerback Brandon Cisse. The hope would be that Cisse develops into a stud CB for years to come, but it’s a wait-and-see game for now.
Meanwhile, the path Nixon has taken from return specialist to nickel to starting cornerback deserves recognition. He’s been a starting-caliber cornerback most of the time, just never a lockdown, no-doubt, CB1.
If Nixon were No. 2 or No. 3 on the depth chart, he’d have a different reputation. Instead, because the Packers haven’t prioritized addressing cornerback in a couple of years, they’ve nudged him into the No. 1 spot, and the results haven’t been stellar. It doesn’t help that, shortly after the playoff loss to Chicago when the Packers were cleaning out their lockers, Nixon said he played “really well” in 2025.
If the Packers are interested in extending Nixon, the best time to do so seems to be sometime between now and the end of the summer. Nixon is 29 and will want the security of another contract before the season begins.
From Green Bay’s perspective, there’s little to wonder about Nixon’s game. Who he is at this point is who he’s going to be. If the Packers deem his play crucial for the next two or three years after 2026, why not get something hashed out now?
Nixon shouldn’t break the bank, and he mentioned all the way back in January that he could be seeking a new deal but would prefer to stay in Green Bay.
“I’ll talk to my agent and stuff like that, but I love Green Bay,” he said. “This is where I wanna be. I don’t really wanna go nowhere else, so we’ll see. We’ll have talks, for sure, but this is definitely where I wanna be.”
There are a couple of questions at play here. The first is whether or not the Packers should extend Keisean Nixon. If there’s nothing done by the time Week 1 rolls around, Green Bay may be giving its indirect answer. It would make sense for a team that needs to improve at cornerback to keep their top player at the position, even if he’s best suited for a No. 2 role. And, in that case, it makes the most sense to get it done sooner rather than later.
