Green Bay Packers kick returner Keisean Nixon named first-team all-pro

GREEN BAY – Keisean Nixon was a big reason the Green Bay Packers won four straight games and nearly made it to the playoffs.

Media across the country took notice because Nixon was named to the Associated Press all-pro first team Friday.

Nixon became the first player in club history to win first-team honors for the kickoff-return position, which the NFL added to the list of honorees in 1976. The last first-team returner the Packers had was Desmond Howard, who won the honor for punt returns in 1996.

The only other player on the all-pro teams was cornerback Jaire Alexander, who was a second-team selection.

Nixon led the NFL in kickoff-return average of 28.83 yards per attempt, leading the second-highest finisher by more than 2½ yards. He lead the NFL with 1,009 kickoff return yards and was one of only three players to return a kickoff for a touchdown.

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During a five-game stretch starting with the Philadelphia game in Week 12, Nixon averaged 39.1 yards per return. He had a 93-yard return against Miami and a 101-yard return for a touchdown against Minnesota.

Despite returning only kickoffs his first two years with the Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders, Nixon was inserted into the lineup against the New York Jets after returner Amari Rodgers was pulled and had a 32-yard return on his first attempt.

Nixon had been bugging special teams coach Rich Bisaccia about getting an opportunity to return kicks and punts, but it wasn’t until Rodgers fumbled on a punt return in Washington that Nixon started working regularly at the position.

He averaged only 20.7 yards over the next four games, but he broke out against the Eagles with five returns for 172 yards. He became the first player with two kickoff returns of 50 or more yards in game since the New York Jets’ Andre Roberts in 2018 and it was the first time since 2000 that the Packers had three kickoff returns of 35 or more yards in a game.

Nixon accomplished all of it while also playing 66 snaps on defense as the nickel corner.

Over the next four games, he averaged 25.5 yards against Chicago, 31.7 against the Los Angeles Rams, 56.5 against Miami and 105.0 against Minnesota on kickoff returns. The Detroit Lions kicked away from Nixon in the season finale and he had only 79 yards on four returns.

Nixon also started returning punts against Dallas and finished the season with a 14.6 average on seven attempts.

Once the return jobs were his, Nixon became a fan and locker room favorite. The sideline would erupt any time he had a big return and the blocking got better as the year went on.

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Quarterback Aaron Rodgers raved about Nixon after the Bears game.

“For a long time here, when that ball’s up in the air on a kickoff, I’m thinking, ‘Stay in. Stay in. Don’t bring it out’ because not a lot of good stuff happened,” Rodgers said. “But I always tell Kei when he’s about to go out there, ‘Bring it out. Bring that out,’ just because he brings an extra type of juice to our football team.

“He’s the type of player I wish I’d had over the course of my career because you feel real good going to battle with a guy like that.”

Nixon is an unrestricted free agent this offseason.