Prediction: Will This Be Super Season for Packers or Super Disappointment?

ON THE WAY TO MINNEAPOLIS – The Green Bay Packers’ season is finally here. With Week 1 at the Vikings just hours away, the outlook is shrouded in as much mystery as any season in recent years.

A full-strength roster featuring Jordan Love, Josh Jacobs, Tucker Kraft, Micah Parsons, Edgerrin Cooper and Xavier McKinney is good enough to beat any team in the league, any day of the week, any location on Earth.

This is Titletown. The Packers’ drought since winning Super Bowl XLV in 2010 is longer than the break between championships spanning Super Bowl XXXI and Super Bowl XLV. Could this year’s team get covered in championship confetti? Absolutely.

But then there are the questions – the disturbing questions – that make the barrier seem almost insurmountable.

The biggest one is the absence of No. 1.

How can the Packers, who didn’t win any games without Parsons last year, win games without him this year?

To be sure, the schedule-makers did what they could to help. The Vikings missed the playoffs last season. The Jets in Week 2 missed the playoffs last season. So did the Falcons in Week 3 and the Buccaneers in Week 4.

However, the lack of pass rush is going to be a real problem. Any competent NFL quarterback can carve up defenses when given a clean pocket, especially when going against a suspect veteran cornerback and a rookie cornerback. Here are the clean-pocket completion rates from the opening quarterbacks:

The Vikings’ Kyler Murray, 73.8 percent (10th out of 41 quarterbacks, according to PFF).

The Jets’ Geno Smith, 75.6 percent (seventh).

The Falcons’ Tua Tagovailoa, 72.4 percent (14th).

The Buccaneers’ Baker Mayfield, 68.6 percent (32nd).

No, that’s not a Mission Impossible-style gauntlet of games but, other than maybe the Jets in Week 2, there aren’t any lock-of-the-century wins, either.

Week 1: at Vikings

The Vikings, obviously, are going to pose a huge challenge. They won nine games last season despite horrendous quarterback play. Say what you want about Murray, but he’s an incredible upgrade for coach Kevin O’Connell, who turned former washout Sam Darnold into a star in 2024.

How on earth are the Packers, with a suspect pass rush and suspect cornerbacks, going to handle the premier receiver trio of Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and Jauan Jennings? How can the Packers, with a suspect offensive line, combat Brian Flores’ blitzes? How can they run the football?

This is a huge game, plain and simple, that without a touch of hyperbole could decide the team’s fate in the playoff and division races.

Week 2: at Jets

The Packers should win this game, and probably will, but Smith has some weapons with receiver Garrett Wilson, first-round receiver Omar Cooper, first-round tight end Kenyon Sadiq and running backs Breece Hall and Braelon Allen.

Week 3: vs. Falcons

The home team on a short week has an obvious built-in advantage. Presumably Tagovailoa will be the quarterback for this Thursday night game. When given time, he can be lethal. He ranks second in NFL history in completion percentage and had 100-rating seasons in 2022, 2023 and 2024. With receiver Drake London, tight end Kyle Pitts and running back Bijan Robinson, they are a threat to score a lot of points.

From the first quarter of the season, this could actually be the most important game. They absolutely can’t lose a winnable home game.

Week 4: at Buccaneers

Mayfield was an MVP candidate at midseason last year, when the Buccaneers were rolling at 6-2. It all went sideways, though, and they missed the playoffs. However, in three seasons in Tampa Bay, he’s thrown for 12,237 yards and 95 touchdowns. Nobody would confuse Emeka Egbuka, Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan with the Vikings’ top trio (or the Packers’ group, for that matter), but Mayfield is good enough to make it work.

Week 5: vs. Bears

Now comes the meat of the schedule. It’s possible Parsons will return for this game, based on general manager Brian Gutekunst saying Parsons could make his practice debut after Week 2. If so, he could be a savior for a team that didn’t have his game-closing ability in the two devastating fall-from-ahead losses to Chicago last season.

Chances are, the Packers will take the prudent approach with their superstar pass rusher, though, which might force Matt LaFleur and Jordan Love to win a shootout against Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams.

Week 6: vs. Cowboys

Parsons or no Parsons, this is going to be a big-time challenge. The Cowboys might have the best passing attack in the NFL with Dak Prescott throwing to George Pickens and CeeDee Lamb. With only Pickens last year, Prescott threw for 319 yards and three touchdowns as the Cowboys hung 40 on Green Bay’s defense.

Week 7: at Lions

Parsons wrecked the Lions last year and they might need him to do so again. In home games last season, Jared Goff averaged 280 passing yards per game with 18 touchdowns and three interceptions. If Dallas’ Pickens and Lamb are the best receiver duo in the league, then Detroit’s Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams aren’t far behind.

The Bottom Line

So, that’s the first seven games. How much margin for error will the Packers have headed into the final 10 games?

I don’t think it’s doom and gloom to see the Packers with a 3-4 record. That’s a split of the opening four games (wins over the Jets and Falcons), a loss to the Bears (assuming Parsons’ return is a week away) and a split against the Cowboys and Lions.

Given the power of the NFC West, there might be only one more wild-card team from the NFC. The Packers snuck in with a 9-7-1 record last year, but it probably will take 10 wins to get into the dance this year.

With that three-win start, are there seven wins available in the final 10 games? Starting with Week 8, the final games are at home against the Panthers, at the Patriots, home against the Vikings, at the Rams and Saints, home against the Bills and Dolphins, at the Bears and home against the Texans and Lions.

If the Packers stay healthy – at least by NFL standards – anything is possible. But the offensive line is a question mark, who knows if they’ll be able to run the football, what happens when/if one of their three primary receivers goes down, can the rookie kicker make clutch kicks and can the coach push the right buttons in the biggest games?

Maybe I’m stuck on the lack of a pass rush and how it could crush the season before they get a chance to get rolling. Maybe LaFleur and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon will crush the team’s weaknesses through aggressive dominance. Maybe Kraft and Parsons will be as good this year as they were at the time of their injuries last season.

But until the Packers show they have what it takes to close games, the offensive line becomes a force and LaFleur is willing to let Love cook, eight wins feels right.

The Packers made a blockbuster trade for Parsons to maximize the championship window. The timing of his injury torpedoed last season and could sabotage this season. That means half of his contract could go down the drain. With all sorts of contractual questions coming up on a high-priced roster, the championship window could be closing.

Part 1 of our weekly series starts with the positive.

Here’s why the Packers will beat the Vikings. ⬇️https://t.co/f3dcU1LYe0
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) September 12, 2026

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