Green Bay was one of those teams who were getting hyped to the moon before they traded for Micah Parsons. An 11-6 season a year ago, paired with smart upgrades on offense, and an NFC North with all their rivals rebuilding or retooling, the Packers seemed poised to make noise in 2025. It was acceptable to throw a little doubt on all this, because while the team did make incremental improvements, there was nothing that made major noise.
Then they traded for one of the best pass rushers in football.
On Thursday night the Packers easily dispatched the Washington Commanders, holding one of the best offenses in the conference to three points entering the fourth quarter, before a little complacency snuck in and a garbage time touchdown late in the game made the box score look infinitely closer than the game really was. Green Bay is now 2-0 after two weeks, easily coasting past two of the other best teams in the conference. The hype isn’t just deserved, it’s been earned — and now the Packers hit a much easier stretch of their schedule which could easily see this team at 4-0 entering the bye week, or even 7-0 before Halloween.
There are some core factors to why Green Bay is looking like one of the best team in the NFC right now, and a couple of pitfalls they need to watch for moving forward.
Where the Packers are going right
Micah Parsons has transformed the defense
The wildest part about what Parsons has added to the Packers’ defense is that he’s doing it while still being injured. Parsons is still dealing with a lingering back issue he brought with him to Green Bay, playing limited snaps in the first game and not fully participating in practice since arriving.
Despite all this he is still absolutely dominating on pass rush, particularly in generating pressure up the middle.
Not only has Parsons forcing bad plays from normally unflappable quarterbacks in Jared Goff and Jayden Daniels, but the threat of him on every down is opening up plays for other key players on the defensive front. Lukas Van Ness, Rashan Gary, and Devonte Wyatt are all thriving since the Parsons addition, and when you mesh this quartet of pressure up front with run-stopping linebackers, and a solid secondary it’s very difficult to find a consistent way to attack the Packers’ defense
Life is very easy for defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley right now. Rather than needing to draw up complicated blitz packages or schemes to work around his weaknesses, essentially all Green Bay is doing is beating their opponents at multiple positions using fairly vanilla scheme diversity.
What this means is that the Packers have a lot of latitude to add wrinkles in the future. In two weeks they’ve given away very little about what exotic packages they could be saving in their back pocket, simply because they haven’t needed to do anything tough right now.
Jordan Love is coming into his own
An eye-popping stat on Thursday night was the history of Packers QBs to take a major leap forward when they’re 26 or 27 years old. Bart Starr passed for 2,000+ yards for the first time in 1961 when he was 26. Brett Favre won his first NFL MVP at 26. Aaron Rodgers made his first Pro Bowl at 26. Jordan Love, well, he’s 26 right now.
That might be a fun aside, but the reality is that Love is playing the best football of his career right now. Through two games he has a passer rating of 120.0, a career-high completion percentage of 66%, and has thrown four touchdowns without an interception or fumble. On top of all this he’s also generating more yards-per-attempt than at any point in his career.
There are numerous reasons for this. The aforementioned defense is making life much easier for hin in 2025, putting Green Bay in a position where they don’t need to play from behind. In addition the every-present threat of Josh Jacons in the backfield is blocking a lot of teams from running risky blitz packages against the offense.
We’re seeing a rising tide lift all ships on the offense, and Love is playing so well that he could have an MVP-worthy season in 2025.
Tucker Kraft has emerged as a difference-maker
Up to this point in his career Kraft has been a solid, but largely unremarkable tight end for the Packers. Often used as an extension of the offensive line, the team didn’t really utilize him as pass catcher. However, this season — or more aptly against Washington, Kraft transformed into the team’s biggest receiving threat.
Jayden Reed’s injury has put pressure on players like Kraft to step up and fill the void, which he’s done in a serious way as a receicer. It’s just another potential layer to Love’s passing offense, and one that had built a redundancy for Love. Reed was his safety net on a lot of plays, but the tight end taking on a bigger role in the offense isn’t something we saw coming and it changes the outlook of this team.
What the Packers need to watch out for
Lack of run game efficiency
A lot of what has allowed Love to succeed thus far is teams having to respect Josh Jacobs in the backfield, but that will wear off if the team can’t find ways to make Jacobs’ carries more successful. Up to this point the team has not used any other running back, and Jacobs isn’t rushing the ball at an effective rate, averaging just 3.6 yards-per-carry.
The depth at RB is atrocious right now. In two games Jacobs has carried the ball 42 times, with Chris Brooks and Emmanuel Wilson only getting a single rushing attempt each. If this team can’t pick up consistent yards on the ground the mystique of the offense is buried, and teams will be able to focus in on Love more with zero blitzes — something he hasn’t really faced this season.
It’s far from a panic button moment, but something the Packers offense will need to adjust for.
… and that’s it
The Packers are as complete a team as you’ll find in the NFL right now. It’s early, but coming out 2-0 against the Lions and Commanders is a statement. Over the next few weeks they face the likes of the Browns, Cowboys, Bengals, and Cardinals — all much easier than the games they’d had so far.
It’s okay to buy into the hype. This team is for real.