Xavier McKinney added fuel to the fire of Packers-Lions rivalry with some harsh trash talk

Week 9's matchup between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions hardly needed any more stakes. These two teams have a long and storied history of not liking each other very much, for starters, and that's before we even get to the playoff implications: Detroit enters at 6-1, Green Bay at 6-2, and the winner will put itself in the driver's seat not just in the NFC North but in the race for the conference's No. 1 overall seed. It's the biggest game of the weekend, two of the best quarterbacks and best playcallers in the sport going head to head with historic Lambeau Field as a backdrop.

But despite all that, Packers safety Xavier McKinney felt like things weren't quite ratcheted up enough. Just 48 hours before kick, McKinney was asked about what challenges the Lions offense presented. Instead of offering up some boilerplate compliments, he went straight at Detroit's neck.

Xavier McKinney says Lions 'try to embarrass people'

McKinney didn't simply slight Ben Johnson, Jared Goff and the Lions offense. He questioned their very character, saying that "in my opinion, I think they try to embarrass people."

"This organization and players we have here — they don't take that lightly."

It's a not-so-veiled shot at the way Detroit has run up the score on certain opponents in recent weeks, specifically the Cowboys and the Titans. Against Dallas, in particular, the Lions busted out a seemingly endless array of trick plays, attempting to exact some revenge for the team's controversial loss at AT&T Stadium last season. It went way above and beyond simply trying to win a football game; it really did seem like Detroit's goal was to embarrass the Cowboys — how else to explain trying to score with an offensive lineman with the game already well in hand?

You can understand why McKinney might bristle at that, and relish the chance to knock the league's most high-flying offense down a peg or two. The Lions have made offense look easy so far this season, and no defender wants to find themselves on the receiving end of that kind of treatment. On the other hand, however: It's not like the Packers are the only defense in the league that hates the idea of getting embarrassed on national television. If teams don't like it, they can simply find a way to stop it, and that's something no one (save for Todd Bowles) has been able to pull off so far this season.

It's all well and good for McKinney to be fired up by what he's seen on tape and vow that it won't happen to his team. But the proof, as they say, is in the pudding, and it won't mean a thing if Jeff Hafley's unit can't execute on the field on Sunday.