Packer Central

Times Are A-Changin’, And They Will Challenge Packers in NFC North

The Packers are in good hands at quarterback with Jordan Love. However, it’s no longer the Packers’ star quarterback and the Three Blind Mice.
Jacob Westendorf|
Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is pressured by the Detroit Lions last season.
Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love is pressured by the Detroit Lions last season. | Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Green Bay Packers

Jordan Love is the starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers. The contract extension he received in August ensured the Packers would have quarterback stability for the next half-decade.

After Love and the offense took the league by storm to close his first season as a starter, fans and team personnel began to dream.

Did the Packers really strike gold with a third consecutive great quarterback?

That remains to be seen. Love played injured in 2024, and the offense as a whole took a step back.

Whether or not Love is elite is up for debate. What is not up for debate is that he’s a good starting quarterback in the NFL. Those are worth their weight in gold.

That’s been the case in Green Bay since 1992, when Brett Favre first stepped onto the field as a member of the Packers, taking over for Don Majkowski on a franchise-shifting September day at Lambeau Field.

Favre took off from there, winning three MVP awards and a Super Bowl before handing the reins to Aaron Rodgers in 2008. Rodgers won four MVP awards and a Super Bowl before handing the keys to Love in 2023.

Love has shown flashes of MVP potential and won a playoff game in his first season as a starter. He believes the Packers have what it takes to get to the Super Bowl.

The rest of the NFC North? That’s been a walking definition of quarterback purgatory.

For years, the division was mostly occupied by whoever was under center for the Packers and the equivalent of the Three Blind Mice.

Chicago, famous for being a quarterback wasteland, was best served when Jay Cutler was the signal-caller. Cutler was solid but made too many mistakes. In a foreshadowing of things to come, in his first game as the Bears’ quarterback in 2009, he threw four interceptions, including one to Al Harris that sealed a victory for Green Bay on opening night.

Since Favre took over in Green Bay in 1992, Chicago traded two first-round picks to acquire Cutler and spent first-round picks on Cade McNown, Rex Grossman, Mitchell Trubisky and Caleb Williams. Of the quarterbacks Chicago drafted, only Grossman got a second contract, which was a one-year deal to compete for the starting job with Kyle Orton.

Trubisky is best known for being picked ahead of Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes. McNown never amounted to anything. The jury remains out on Williams, last year’s No. 1 overall pick.

Detroit, like Chicago, struggled. Before Matthew Stafford, it put up one losing season after another with the likes of Joey Harrington and Charlie Batch. Even when it had Stafford, it could only muster two winning seasons. As soon as Stafford left Detroit, he won a Super Bowl with the Los Angeles Rams and has made a run in the postseason each of the two years he was healthy.

They’ve only recently become successful under Dan Campbell and Jared Goff.

The ironic part of the NFC North quarterback situation over the last 30 years is that the best quarterback that any of Green Bay’s starters faced off against was one of their own.

When Favre defected to Minnesota in 2009, he was an MVP candidate and nearly led the Vikings to the Super Bowl before an ill-fated interception at the Saints in the NFC Championship Game sealed their fate.

Minnesota has had short stints with players like Favre, Daunte Culpepper and Randall Cunningham. They’ve never had long-term stability at the position to truly challenge the Packers for NFC North supremacy.

That’s been the case with all three teams.

Until now?

As Bob Dylan famously said, the times are a-changin’ in the NFC North.

The Packers appear to have their quarterback. That’s not new. What is new is Love not only might not be the best quarterback in the division, he might have to prove he’s not in the basement.

That’s no knock on Love, just a testament to what could be happening with the group around him.

Detroit has become a Super Bowl contender with Goff. After a slow start, the Lions went 12-5 and reached the NFC Championship Game in 2023 and 15-2 and earned the No. 1 seed in 2024.

Goff was considered a throw-in in the Stafford trade but has proven to be a godsend for a franchise that was a barren wasteland prior to his arrival. The Lions are one of the favorites to represent the NFC in this year’s Super Bowl, and Goff is a big reason why.

The other two teams in the division do require some projection, but there are reasons to be excited in Chicago and Minnesota.

Chicago made the wise decision to move on from Justin Fields after a trade with the Carolina Panthers netted them the top overall pick in the 2024 draft. Williams showed flashes as a rookie and has plenty of potential. He’s now armed with a new offensive-minded head coach in Ben Johnson, who as offensive coordinator in Detroit led Goff and the Lions to new heights.

The Bears rebuilt their offensive line and boast D.J. Moore, Rome Odunze and rookie Luther Burden III at receiver and Cole Kmet and rookie Colston Loveland at tight end. If Williams lives up to his potential, Chicago’s offense will be scary.

There may not be a bigger wild card in the NFL than Minnesota’s J.J. McCarthy. McCarthy was drafted in the first round last year and was expected to compete for the starting job by the middle of his rookie season if Sam Darnold proved to be nothing more than a stopgap.

McCarthy, however, was lost for the season in August, and Darnold thrived under Kevin O’Connell’s tutelage.

Despite Darnold’s breakout season, Minnesota chose not to keep him and turned their nose up at Rodgers. Both moves signal a confidence that McCarthy is the man they want under center.

For a young quarterback, there may not be a better situation across the league. O’Connell has not won a playoff game, but has made chicken salad out of Darnold and an aging Kirk Cousins. Of course, Justin Jefferson garners all the headlines as a game-breaking receiver, but he’s not alone. Jordan Addison has been solid in his two seasons, T.J. Hockenson is one of the best tight ends in football, Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason form a solid one-two punch in the backfield and the offensive line was rebuilt.

Minnesota won 14 games last season, including two against the Packers. They feel like they can be better at quarterback and feasibly become a better team in the process.

What kind of proposition is that for a Packers team that was 1-5 against the division a season ago and was a fingertip away from taking the collar in the NFC North?

Of course, McCarthy could prove to not be ready for primetime, Williams could flop again and the Lions could become victims of their own success.

Things like that used to be a given in the North.

It’s no longer the Packers and the Three Blind Mice. This division is shaping up to be one of the toughest in the NFL, and that’s due in large part to the game’s most important position. 

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Jacob Westendorf
JACOB WESTENDORF