The NFL will release the full schedule for all 32 teams this Thursday, and with that comes endless possibilities to ponder before the calendar is set. Of course, it’s always a bit of a guessing game to determine what matchups are most favorable and which games are most winnable before the season starts. Still, there are a few changes from the 2025 schedule the Green Bay Packers would undoubtedly like to see.
The most obvious culprit: the early bye week.
Green Bay’s bye last year fell in Week 5, before the leaves had even fallen off the trees in Wisconsin. It was the earliest for the Packers since 2020, when the bye also came in Week 5. Head coach Matt LaFleur was asked about it a few times after the league released the 2025 slate. He was less than thrilled.
It’s interesting, you have a real quick turnaround in Week 2 getting a Thursday night game against a really talented Washington Commanders team, and then we have an early bye, which is kind of weird after that Thursday night game, but it is what it is.
The quick turnaround LaFleur was referencing is that in Week 1 last year, the Packers hosted the Detroit Lions on a Sunday before having to turn the page quickly to welcome in the Washington Commanders the following Thursday night. Then came a “mini bye” of sorts, with the Packers not playing from the Thursday of Week 2 until Sunday in Week 3. The bye week arrived just two weeks later. There’s no doubt the Packers — and mostly every other team — would prefer to have the bye week come later in the season.
Not only did Green Bay play the first official Thursday Night Football game of the year, but they also had a bye week, the earliest a team can have one (Week 5). It was a bit of a strange combination.
Secondly, the Packers opened the season immediately against the Lions, a division rival. However, didn’t play another NFC North team until the Minnesota Vikings came to town in Week 12. On top of that, the Packers had a stretch in which four of their five late-season games came against NFC North foes, including three straight at one point and five of the last seven.
In one stretch, Green Bay played host to the Vikings on November 23 before heading to Detroit four days later for a Thanksgiving Day tussle. The very next game was at home against Chicago.
Now, Green Bay did go 3-0 during that stretch, but they did not claim the division despite going 4-2 against the Bears, Vikings, and Lions. Playing division opponents later in the season always drives up the hype. Still, it’d probably suit the Packers best if those games were more evenly spread throughout the 2026 schedule, rather than jam-packed into the last seven weeks.
Finally, the Packers had an odd schedule in 2025, featuring two Thursday games and two Saturday games. Among all 32 teams in the NFL, nobody had more short weeks followed by road games than Green Bay. The Packers had three such instances last year and went 1-1-1 in those road games after short weeks.
The reality is that the NFL is putting increasingly more games outside the country. Couple that with varying deals with CBS, FOX, and streaming services, and you have just about everyone’s schedule controlled chaos. While the league sees dollar signs and can’t resist, teams are having to adjust on the fly like never before.
No team will ever completely love the layout of their schedule, but Green Bay’s 2025 slate seemed exceptionally strange. That’s absolutely not an excuse for the Packers. You have to play the cards the league deals you. Green Bay did a great job with that for most of the season … that is, until everything caved in at the end with five consecutive losses, including the postseason.
For 2026, a later bye week, division games more evenly spread out, and as few short weeks to prepare immediately followed by a road game would be phenomenal. Will all of that happen? Probably not. Still, for a team that had an abnormal amount of strange dealings on the 2025 schedule, it’s hard to picture it being more chaotic in 2026.
