Skip to main content
Packer Central

Four Days Until Week 1: Packers Must Improve But Can’t Slack on Four Strengths

The Green Bay Packers have to get better in several areas in order to win the NFC North and compete for a championship. Other areas, though, must be building blocks.
Bill Huber|
Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is shown during last year's home game against the Vikings.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is shown during last year's home game against the Vikings. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

In this story:

Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – With the Green Bay Packers preparing to kick off the 2026 NFL season at the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, it’s easy to focus on weaknesses that must become strengths.

To bring the title back to Titletown, the offense must become more explosive, the defense must create more takeaways and the special teams must provide better field position. In the pursuit of fixing weaknesses, the Packers can’t slack on areas that should be building blocks.

With four days until kickoff and using the graphics from the SFdata9ers X page, here are four strengths that can’t become weaknesses.

Whole Lotta Love

By the standard numbers, Jordan Love is a pretty good quarterback. Last season, 32 quarterbacks threw at least 250 passes. Love was an excellent sixth in passer rating but 15th in completion percentage, 14th in touchdowns and 13th in yards. Yards and touchdowns are the usual benchmarks for quarterbacking excellence.

That’s a shortsighted way to view things, though. Love was 19th in passing attempts, limiting his ability to produce a prolific yardage total. Josh Jacobs was the team’s red-zone focus, limiting Love’s ability to pile up the touchdowns.

The analytical numbers love Love. For instance, Love finished second in these composite quarterback rankings, which take into account QBR, EPA per play, completion percentage above expectations, bad-throw percentage, pressure-to-sack percentage and air yards per reception.

Love was in the top seven in four of those six categories and 11th in another. His excellence is a combination of talent and experience.

“It’s huge,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said on Tuesday of Love’s work at the line of scrimmage. “Jordan does an excellent job with all that stuff. Certain looks he can get you in the right protection or make the right adjustment. Sometimes, if quarterbacks can’t handle that, then the O-line has to handle that, and then it can get dicey because they may make a call that the quarterback doesn’t know what’s going on.

“So, if the quarterback’s running the show, he can make sure the O-line’s on the same page – the backs, the tight ends, everyone are on the same page. But he does a really nice job with all that stuff.”

What a quarterback does statistically is important, obviously. Sometimes, though, it’s what he doesn’t do. In Love’s case, it’s not turning over the football.

Love was fifth in turnover percentage, which combines interceptions and fumbles. After throwing 11 interceptions in 2023 and again in 2024, he tossed only six last season.

Fourth-Quarter Comebacks

It’s easy to focus on the Packers’ fourth-quarter failures last season. In the Week 16 loss at Chicago, they were outscored 13-3 in the fourth quarter (19-6, including overtime). In the Week 17 loss to Baltimore, they were outscored 14-0 in the fourth quarter. In the playoff loss to Chicago, they were outscored 25-6 in the fourth quarter.

On the other hand, the Packers were third in the league with four fourth-quarter comebacks.

So, the Packers have shown they can finish games. They need to take that to a higher level, obviously.

Closing out games falls on all three phases. After Jeff Hafley’s defense collapsed against the Bears, the Packers will move forward with Jonathan Gannon.

“I feel really good,” he said about his defense on Tuesday. “There’s always an unknown until you line up and play about how it’s going to be. There’s an element I think everybody in the NFL goes through the first month of the season, call it. You’re kind of still figuring it out, too. We’re no different than that.

“That’s where adaptability comes in. This is the way we want to play, how we got to play. That’s going to change week to week. I’m not opposed to [adapting]. I like this but our guys, for whatever reason, we can’t get it completely right, [so] throw it away. There will be a learning process for us as a group as we get going through the year.”

Situational Success

On offense last season, the Packers finished second on third down and eighth in goal-to-go situations.

If the Packers had first-and-goal, they came away with a touchdown 82.8 percent of the time. Duplicating that will be a challenge without Josh Jacobs’ goal-line prowess. That means more scoring opportunities for the Jordan Love-led passing attack.

On third down, Green Bay’s conversion rate of 48.8 percent was second. It was one of only three teams at 45 percent or better. Minnesota will be a huge challenge right off the bat, with Brian Flores’ defense ranking fourth with a third-down conversion rate allowed of 34.5 percent.

“Just the different stuff that they do on third downs,” receiver Matthew Golden said. “Blitzes and how they disguise coverages. I think for us just preparing through the week and just everything that we put into the details going out there for Week 1 and I think we’ll be in a good spot.”

Defense is where the Packers must improve. They were 14th on third down and 21st in the red zone (but ninth in goal-to-go).

Strong on Special Teams

Green Bay’s special teams have been chronic underachievers. Last season, the problem was an impotent return game. The Packers actually did a very good job in the kicking phases.

With Daniel Whelan’s league-best 51.7-yard average on punts, the Packers finished fourth in net punting with a 43.9-yard average. Meanwhile, the kickoff coverage was excellent.

That can’t change.

“I think first off, we’ve got to be fundamentally sound,” new coordinator Cam Achord said. “I think it starts there. Good techniques. We want to be fundamentally sound, not beat ourselves. When you look at it, if we’re fundamentally sound and we’re doing what we’re supposed to do, and people are like, ‘Hey, those guys are at least in their positions they need to be in,’ that’s the No. 1 thing for me.

“And then, obviously, you want to play with an edge and a physical mindset out there on the field. And then I just want guys to go out there and cut it loose. That’s the biggest thing. But it’s the fundamentals, the attention to details, and just when you turn the film on, you’re like, ‘Hey, this is a competitive group out there on the field.’ We talked about that way back in the spring - the attention to details is a really big thing for me, and knowing what to do when you turn the film on.”

SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY PACKERS NEWSLETTER

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Loading recommendations... Please wait while we load personalized content recommendations

Published | Modified
Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.