There are a handful of games every year that shape a team’s season. On the good side of the ledger for the Green Bay Packers last year were wins against Aaron Rodgers on the road at Pittsburgh and a home win against the Chicago Bears in December.
Complete collapses against Chicago in the other two matchups and a defeat in Denver when the Packers lost Micah Parsons for the season defined the ugly side of the 2025 season.
Here are three games this year that could shape Green Bay’s season — but first, let’s go back to 2025 for a second.
Green Bay took on the Steelers and Aaron Rodgers on the road in a primetime Sunday Night Football affair. The Packers came out on top 35-25 to move to 5-1-1 on the season.
All was well in Packerland. All of a sudden, Green Bay looked like an NFC juggernaut. With another primetime, standalone spot two weeks after the Steelers game against the Philadelphia Eagles, many fans had already started to peek ahead. The Packers may have too.
Sandwiched between that Sunday night game against the Steelers and the Monday night game against the Eagles was a home tilt against the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers made the playoffs last season, but the NFC South was an afterthought. The Panthers won the division with an 8-9 record.
One of those eight wins came against Green Bay when the Panthers shocked a Packers team coming off an adrenaline high in Pittsburgh and perhaps caught looking ahead to the matchup against the Eagles.
A similar scenario could play out this year.
The Packers have two appetizing road matchups in Week 7 at Detroit and Week 9 at New England. One is a division rival; the other is the AFC representative in last year’s Super Bowl.
As fate would have it, the matchup sandwiched between those two is yet again a home date with … the Panthers, in a Thursday Night Football battle. It will serve as yet another potential trap game for the Packers. Green Bay has a chance to show that it learned lessons in 2025.
And then there’s the Christmas Day game. The Packers and Bears are slated to kick off on Xmas at noon. One fanbase will add some extra warmth to their Yuletide glow, while the other will have their holiday ruined. A real lump-of-coal scenario.
Green Bay and Chicago had three slugfests last year, and it’s still almost impossible to fathom how the Packers went 1-2 in those games, given how each unfolded. Truth be told, the Packers should’ve gone 3-0 against the Bears if not for two inexcusable collapses.
The first matchup between the two this year comes in Week 5. If the oddsmakers are correct, the NFC North should be a legitimate four-way battle this year. That will put even more emphasis on the late-season tilts between all four squads. This Christmas Day game could go a long way in telling who comes out on top in the NFC North this year.
Then comes the capstone of the regular season.
Detroit finished last in the division a year ago but has a much more lenient schedule this year. Even though they finished last in the NFC North, the Lions were a good team that just couldn’t get over the hump, thanks in part to terrible injury luck. There is little reason to believe they won’t be right back in the mix again.
The Lions were done zero favors by the schedule makers this year. Three of their last four games of the year include trips to Minnesota, Chicago, and Green Bay. That’s correct, three of the last four for Detroit are not only divisional games, but all on the road.
Green Bay will welcome Detroit to town in Week 18. Between that game and the Chicago-Minnesota one in Minneapolis in the same week, there’s a significant chance the whole divisional is in play, with potential Wild Card implications as well. This game could decide the Packers’ fate in the division.
