The anticipation for the 2024 NFL season has only grown this month after the league released its schedule for the upcoming year. For the Green Bay Packers, surpassing expectations last year only means that people will expect more from the team this year. The question is: does the schedule afford the Packers the opportunity to do so?
Green Bay Packers: 2024 Key Games
The Green Bay Packers have the 4th-toughest schedule of any team next year, so it definitely won’t be easy repeating last year’s successful playoff run. Not only because the league every year has teams that either dramatically decline or improve their performance from the previous season, but also because of the high-quality opponents Green Bay has to face off against.
Looking at the actual schedule, the Packers play road games against Tennessee, the Los Angeles Rams, Jacksonville and Seattle. In terms of their home games, they will compete against Indianapolis, Arizona, Houston, San Francisco, Miami and New Orleans. As I wrote about at length last article, Green Bay will also play a game against the Philadelphia Eagles in Brazil to start off their season on Friday, September 6th. This non-NFC North slate of games for the Packers is both intriguing and challenging. But given Jordan Love’s gradual growth leading the Packers offense and the changes made on defense, its not out of the realm of possibility for Green Bay to finish in the ballpark of 7-4 in these 11 games.
Green Bay Packers: NFC North competition
Some are already making prognostications about how the rest of the division will fare in 2024. But the focus on this article is how the Packers will fare against their three division opponents: the Chicago Bears, the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings. One bold prediction I will make is that the Chicago Bears will FINALLY win a game this upcoming season against Green Bay.
For those keeping track, Chicago has not beaten Green Bay since Week 15 of the 2018 season. Given the franchise completely overhauling its offense and being widely expected to be drastically better than in previous years, I think the Bears will end that 6-year winless drought.
But, that shouldn’t leave the Packers fandom dispirited in the least. I have a strong feeling that the team will once again win at least 1 game against the defending-division champion Detroit Lions. I also will predict that will likely take both games against the Minnesota Vikings. Minnesota also made adjustments to their team by letting go of Kirk Cousins and drafting JJ McCarthy. I think it will take time for the Vikings to develop proper rapport with this rookie QB, so its reasonable to project that Green Bay will have their number in 2024.
Overall, I’m seeing Green Bay go 4-2 against their NFC North rivals. A safe estimate for their overall record in all 17 games is 11-6. A modest 2 game improvement from 2023, and another projected playoff birth. Although the team will likely have to win 1-2 more games if they actually want to win the NFC North division outright.
2024 NFL Season & NFL schedule: What to expect
Obviously, it is not uncommon for teams to shock the world by either doing much better than expected or completely imploding. One major factor every year is how healthy each squad is throughout the season. Major quarterbacks were lost last year due to injuries, and that can certainly alter a team’s trajectory. Another component is limiting distractions. Off-field/contract drama, like what we may be seeing with Jordan Love right now, can most certainly disrupt a team’s chemistry.
But if the Green Bay Packers can limit both injuries and distractions, then I predict that 2024 is shaping up to be another solid year for cheese heads.