Green Bay Packers

An Early Bye Week Can Set the Packers Up For Success

Photo Credit: Derick E. Hingle (USA TODAY Sports)

The Green Bay Packers will get a five-game showcase at the start of the season to see what the team is made of. A relatively light schedule to start the year is the perfect litmus test for a team with a new quarterback and no real expectations.

For the first time in three seasons, the Packers will get an early bye week. Green Bay has a Week 6 bye. They had a Week 13 or later bye week last season and the season before that. The Packers wanted a later bye week in years past, because they needed a little bit of rest before they geared up for a playoff push. But that may not be their main concern this year, regardless of what their record is by Week 6. Obviously, they would like to be over .500, but this is mostly a development year for Love.

The Packers start the season on the road against the Chicago Bears and Atlanta Falcons. Then they will play the New Orleans Saints in their Week 3 home opener. There is a good chance the Packers can come out of those games with a winning record, maybe even start the year 3-0. The talent gap between the Packers and all of those teams is pretty wide. While all four teams are probably in the bottom half of the league, Green Bay could be the best of the bunch among those downtrodden squads.

After that stretch of games, the Packers play the Detroit Lions at home and the Las Vegas Raiders in Sin City before the bye week. Jordan Love and Matt LaFleur should be excited that they get to play this collection of defenses. The Bears, Lions, Falcons, and Raiders finished in the bottom-six yards allowed last year. All four teams also finished in the top 10 for points per game allowed. To say the Packers are getting some soft defenses would be an understatement.

That’s a great thing for Love. Playing weaker defenses could only give him a better foundation for his first full year as a starter. Confidence is a huge thing for young quarterbacks, and each defense they play early gives Love a great opportunity to build confidence.

The early bye week will help Jordan Love whether the Packers are winning and he’s playing well, they are losing and he’s playing poorly, or anywhere in between. If he’s playing well and commanding the offense, it will give the team momentum and swagger as they march along through the schedule. If not, it serves as a moment to pause and regroup. They can assess what went wrong and try to improve as the season goes along. An early pause won’t dampen the success, but it can act as a safety net if things go wrong.

Last year, Green Bay’s 2023 opponents had a .476 winning percentage. The Packers have the ninth-easiest schedule by winning percentage and get to play the AFC West this year. That means they have to play the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs and the Justin Herbert-led Los Angeles Chargers. However, it also means they get the Raiders and Denver Broncos. Ya take what you can get, eh?

The Packers will only play six games against last year’s playoff teams. Now, obviously, teams change from year to year and nobody knows whether a team is going to go up, down, or sideways. Could the Lions finally make the playoffs after some off-season improvement and momentum from last year? Do the Chiefs or Eagles have a Super bowl hangover? No matter what, playing only six playoff teams is favorable for the Packers in 2023-24.

Here is the full Packers’ schedule:

DraftKings Sportsbook has Green Bay’s over-under win total at 7.5 this season.

The Packers won eight games last year, and they lost a lot of impact players in the offseason: Aaron Rodgers, Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb, and Mercedes Lewis, to name a few. Green Bay has undergone a youth movement on offense while keeping its defense that is mostly intact.

Last year, their defense performed adequately. Adrian Amos is still unsigned, and some defensive line depth is gone. But other than that, there are no significant losses on that side of the ball. They should get Rashan Gary back and used a first-round pick on Lukas Van Ness. Devontae Wyatt and Quay Walker could have a second-year jump, and Eric Stokes should bounce back. There is plenty to get excited about for Green Bay’s defense this upcoming year.

The Packers also get some favorable matchups with the Los Angeles Rams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Carolina Panthers. The Rams were horrible last year and seem to be in a transitional phase (not unlike the Packers), the Bucs are starting Baker Mayfield and the Panthers have a rookie quarterback and a new head coach. All of those matchups are later in the year, so Green Bay should have a better understanding of what they have on their own team as well as their opponents by those matchups.

The early bye week can only aid the Packers. If they fold under the pressure of the post-Rodgers era and start off 1-4, so be it. If they go 4-1 and are rolling heading into the bye-week, yay! Either way, the bye-week will serve a valuable purpose, and the Packers benefit from having it where it is.

If you’re being an optimist — *puts on Jamal Williams glasses* — you could see the Packers winning eight or nine games. If you’re being a basketcase — *puts on Dookie glasses* — you see the Packers capping out at five. Either way, as long as we see the progression from Jordan Love, the win total isn’t so important. The Packers won six games in Rodgers’ first year under center.

No matter how perfect or putrid the Packers perform, they will have a good measure of their football team and their shiny new quarterback by the bye week checkpoint.

(All stats and data via Covers, unless otherwise noted)

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