New Green Bay Packers president and CEO Ed Policy opted for continuity this offseason. By extending head coach Matt LaFleur, general manager Brian Gutekunst, and executive vice president and director of football operations Russ Ball, Policy established his belief that the current triumvirate of power is the right group to take the Packers back to the Super Bowl.
With the faith established, it’s up to this group to get over the hump of the past few seasons. To do that, the Packers must win the NFC North for the first time since 2021.
Not since Aaron Rodgers‘ 2021 MVP season has Green Bay won the tumultuous North, while the Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions, and Chicago Bears have reigned at least once since then.
Winning the division isn’t winning the Super Bowl, and one need not look further than the 2010 Packers team to prove you can win as a Wild Card. But, in terms of optics, Policy, and all of Packer Nation, they will breathe a sigh of relief if the Packers can top their division this season.
Since Jordan Love took over for Aaron Rodgers, the Packers have finished the regular season as the seventh seed three seasons in a row. Considering that seed has only existed since the 2020 season, the Packers have barely made the playoffs.
Thanks to regular-season hiccups, the Packers have had their work cut out for them every winter, needing to navigate a tough road slate to reach the title game. They’ve advanced beyond the Wild Card round just once, a dominant victory over the Dallas Cowboys in 2023.
2023 was a transition year, with a first-year starting quarterback and a young, unproven group of offensive weapons. A playoff appearance and a playoff victory meant a lot to be excited about, even if it wasn’t a Super Bowl.
Green Bay’s high expectations were shattered a year later due to injuries to Love and the offense’s overall inconsistency, plus a defense lacking enough high-end talent. The Packers were a playoff one-and-done, losing in Philadelphia.
2025 started well but ended in a nightmare. Tucker Kraft and Micah Parsons experienced season-ending injuries, Zach Tom struggled to stay healthy, and even Jordan Love missed time. Once Parsons went down, the Packers never won another game.
The team had fight left in them against Chicago in the Wild Card round. However, a historic collapse — or, by Packer standards, a standard postseason loss — saw Green Bay’s Super Bowl run end prematurely once again. This loss, in particular, generated a great deal of animosity toward LaFleur.
In those seasons, it wasn’t as if winning the division was a magic cure-all toward winning the Super Bowl.
The 2022 Vikings went 13-4, finished third in the conference, and lost to the sixth-seeded New York Giants.
In 2024, the Lions went 15-2 (first seed), the Vikings went 14-3 (fifth seed), and the Packers went 11-6 (seventh). Three NFC North teams made the playoffs, and not a one won a playoff game. Even the Lions, who had the conference’s lone bye week, suffered a handy 45-31 loss to the Washington Commanders.
Regardless of who is on the slate and where you’re playing, you need to show up and win. You don’t get immunity or any special power-ups for winning your division.
Still, the optics are much better for a team that wins its division and claims at least one home playoff game. And for Green Bay especially, even one extra home game is a boon for the economy of the NFL’s smallest market.
If Gutekunst and Ball have built the roster to compete and LaFleur can lead that team to a division title, that means entering the postseason as the No. 4 seed at worst and hosting a home playoff game. That alone would make the season’s optics better than at least the past two seasons, even if the Packers don’t advance beyond that.
Of course, both fans and the organization would prefer a Super Bowl win. That’s the ultimate goal, and from many points of view, anything less than that means a failure. But performing better than previous seasons in any capacity would constitute growth, and the “easiest” way to start is to come out of the ever-competitive NFC North on top.
The Packers might not prioritize divisional victories as much as their rivals.
“We don’t hang division title banners around here,” Mike McCarthy famously said 10 years ago. The eyes are on the prize in Titletown.
But even McCarthy did say that divisional titles are important. Even if they aren’t anything, winning the division and hosting a home playoff game are signs the Packers are heading in the right direction under their returning leadership.
