After two non-wins against overall inferior opponents, the Green Bay Packers had their bye at the ideal time.
The Packers opened the season with two statement wins over prime NFC opponents before self-inflicted mistakes reared their head the following two games, leading the team to a frustrating 2-1-1 record.
The bye week gave Green Bay time to self-scout their most calamitous mistakes and get their players healthy. Zach Tom and Aaron Banks returned to practice on Monday, and there’s a non-zero chance Christian Watson could be back in the fold.
The gauntlet for the rest of the season begins with the Packers taking on the Cincinnati Bengals, the perfect opponent to get the engine humming.
Since losing quarterback Joe Burrow in Week 2, Cincinnati may be the worst team in the NFL and already has two brutal losses to NFC North teams. The Packers haven’t had the best post-bye week record and a history of playing down to their opponents, but the Bengals are the ideal team to flip that narrative.
Every team plays to win, hence why we actually play the games. The Packers should have beaten the Cleveland Browns and Dallas Cowboys, especially considering they had double-digit leads over both squads. But nobody should underestimate Cleveland’s stout defense, and Dak Prescott played like a man possessed against Green Bay.
The loss and tie sting, but both teams did have something going for them. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Cincinnati.
The league’s most frugal team invested heavily in Burrow and his top receivers, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. There wasn’t much cash left to build an offensive line or a formidable defense, but the Bengals hoped Burrow and his weapons could power through opponents.
Without Burrow, that isn’t happening.
Backup quarterback Jake Browning kept the team afloat when Burrow was hurt in 2024, winning two games over a four-week span. He hasn’t done so in 2025 and has been one of the league’s worst starting QBs.
Browning has eight interceptions to just six touchdowns and has taken nine sacks behind Cincinnati’s problematic offensive line. His most recent game was a three-TD, three-interception affair against the Detroit Lions, which ended in a 37-24 loss. Following his struggles, Zac Taylor left the door open to a potential quarterback change against the Packers. On Tuesday, the Bengals completed a rare intra-divisional trade to acquire Joe Flacco from the Browns.
We don’t know whether Flacco will be game-time-ready by Sunday, but the Packers handled Flacco just fine once already this season. Beyond Flacco and Browning, the team has Brett Rypien on the active roster and former Packer Sean Clifford on the practice squad. Jeff Hafley should feast against whoever is under center.
Regardless of the quarterback situation, the Bengals also can’t run the ball, block, rush the passer, or overall stop their opponents from scoring. Offensively and defensively, this is a team that is bad overall.
Even with Burrow, the Browns only lost to them in Week 1 because of dropped passes and missed kicks. This team is ripe for exploitation.
Will mowing down a bad team make the Packers look great? Not really. The Bengals are a bad team, the Packers a good one. For a team with Super Bowl aspirations, beating a bad opponent is an expectation.
What will be encouraging is if the Packers come out swinging and can completely put a beating on the Bengals.
With Carson Wentz, the Vikings beat the Bengals 48-10. The same Detroit team the Packers dominated in Week 1 beat Cincinnati 37-24. Barely escaping this team with a win isn’t enough. If the Packers want to win their division, they need to do what their rivals did and make a statement win.
Under Matt LaFleur, the Packers haven’t had the best showing following a bye week. Green Bay is 2-1 in its last three post-bye-week games, but none of those were pretty. In 2022, the Packers beat a Baker Mayfield-led Los Angeles Rams team after he’d been in town for only two weeks and started his first game for them. A year later, Anders Carlson missed a field goal while Jordan Love threw a fourth-quarter interception, leading to a 19-17 loss. And last season, only Karl Brooks‘ finger on a blocked kick let the Packers get their only divisional win of the season.
The past two games have been humbling for the Packers, who were crowned the best team in the league far too early. Those last two games won’t sit well with the players or coaches. Even though the Bengals aren’t a formidable opponent, Green Bay must take the game seriously and approach it as if it were a playoff game.
The Bengals are struggling. The Packers need momentum and to hone their lethal instincts. Cincinnati is the ideal team for Matt LaFleur to start the long road to the postseason by laying the absolute hurting on them and using a no-holds-barred victory to launch a successful post-bye campaign.
