The NFL season gets under way on Thursday, Sept. 5th, or should I say, “Chiefs Kingdom’s annual competition commences this Thursday.”? Ever since Tom Brady exited the NFL, the Kansas City Chiefs have reigned supreme and can’t seem to be stopped. They’ve won 3 of the last 5 Super Bowls including the last two. No team has won 3 consecutive since the 1965-1967 Green Bay Packers. It’d only be fitting if the Packers were the ones to stop them this year, wouldn’t it?

Who Can Win It This Year?

It’s safe to assume the final four teams from last year are all legitimate contenders for hoisting the Lombardi Trophy this upcoming February. Those teams were the Kansas City Chiefs, San Francisco 49ers, Baltimore Ravens, and the Detroit Lions. Adding to that list, I’d say the Cincinnati Bengals, Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, and Houston Texans.

I don’t give much of a chance to the New York Jets, Dallas Cowboys, or Philadelphia Eagles as they really have nothing to build off of from last season. Sure a team can come out and surprise us and win it all, but history is the best indicator of the future, and history has shown us that the strongest teams are the ones that build off previous production.

What Does This Mean for Green Bay?

There is much excitement for the Packers in 2024, and justifiably so. The Packers finished the season 7-3, including their postseason. In those games, they looked like a much different team and even in those losses (excluding the Tampa Bay debacle) had a realistic chance to win the game. It’s been well-reported abou the roster changes from last season, with the arrival of Josh Jacobs, which coincided with fan-favorite, Aaron Jones’ departure, along with Xavier McKinney, the Packers have upgraded each of those positions – especially at safety. Maybe the biggest change is the new Defensive Coordinator, Jeff Hafley. Hafley left the head job at Boston College to take over an under-performing defense which has immense talent. His style of play (4-3 defense vs. 3-4) fits the personnel better and his mindset will bring a much-needed change to the Packer secondary. He’s a defensive backs coach by trade and has quite a embarassment of riches with which to work.

Should Jordan Love continue to improve at or near the pace he showed last season – coupled with Hafley getting this defense to perform to a top-7 unit, the Packers could really do some damage this season. It’s not out of the question to think they could wind up with the top seed in the NFC and win the Super Bowl. Keep in mind, they beat the Chiefs in December of last year, and looked great doing so. Most fans will tell you that Brian Gutekunst ridding the roster of Anders Carlson will be a huge difference-maker (and maybe it will be), however those fans seem to forget the Packers had the ball with 1:07 left with all 3 timeouts and Love didn’t come through. Those are the types of drives needed to win playoff games and Super Bowls. Maybe he learned from it, maybe he didn’t. However, the fun for us fans will be watching to see if he did!

As an annual tradition, I went through each game for the 2024 season and picked winners and losers. These are the conference results that came from them. This way every win has an appropriate loss elsewhere so the records even out accordingly. The one that kind of shocked me, when it was all said and done was the 49ers’ record of 11-6. I feel like they’ll fare better, but then again the NFL is tricky and nothing should truly be surprising…almost nothing 🙂

PLAYOFFS

Wild Card Round

Divisional Round

Championship Sunday

In a matchup where both winners get retribution against teams that have stymied them over the past seasons, it creates a matchup of some of, if not the, best fan bases in the NFL.

The Super Bowl in New Orleans, LA will feature the Packers against a strong AFC East opponent, much like Super Bowl XXXI. However, this one doesn’t go Green Bay’s way and the Bills hoist their firt Lombardi Trophy. Should this be the case, many fans will call this a “success,” yet have either no memory or weren’t old enough to fully understand the pain that came with the Super Bowl XXXII loss at the hands of the Broncos. That was the most painful experience as a sports fan for me, and should’ve been for every Packer fan. The amount of anxiety, excitement, and stress that’ll come during those 2 weeks between Championship Sunday and Super Bowl Sunday will be almost unimaginable. Then again, should the Packers win, it could be the beginning of something really special in Titletown – with the youth of this roster coupled with Jordan Love, it’s not out of the question to believe it into existence.