In football, what you deserve has little to do with what you get. Good teams frequently get beaten by bad ones. The very best team often doesn’t win the Super Bowl. Players who work hard to reach the top of their craft get injured and lose their golden opportunity.
But if anybody deserves something, the Green Bay Packers deserve to open the 2025 season at home.
For a decade now, the Packers have opened their seasons as road warriors. Over their past 10 seasons, they’ve launched their campaigns on the road eight times, the only exceptions being their 2017 opener against the Seahawks and the 2018 season opener against the Bears.
Two Week 1 games at home in ten years. The Packers have started their season in Jacksonville twice in that same span, against two different teams, to boot! In 2016, they played the Jaguars (as you’d expect, being that they’re from Jacksonville), and in 2021, they played the Saints in Jacksonville after a hurricane forced the NFL to relocate the game.
And while that 2018 opener was great (it’s Cobb again!), the Packers have played in Chicago to start the season three times in the past 10 years. Three times! Why do the Bears, the little brother in this rivalry for 30 years, get the pleasure of hosting their biggest rival to start their season? They certainly don’t deserve that.
That 2018 game was the last time the Packers were able to enjoy a Week 1 game at Lambeau Field. Six straight seasons — the entire Matt LaFleur era — they’ve been on the road to get things going. That includes a trip to Brazil. Brazil! Five straight domestic road games in Week 1 and a trip to the southern hemisphere since the last time the Packers had a Week 1 home game.
What gives, schedule makers? Nobody should have to spend that much time in Jacksonville or visiting their hated rivals. Throw us a bone, here. Send someone north to start their season for a change. Any of the Packers’ divisional opponents would be a compelling Week 1 game. If you’re looking for some primetime juice, that would be good enough, but the Eagles, Ravens, Bengals, and even Commanders would be great, too. Each of those teams was in the playoffs last year, and putting any of them in Lambeau Field for Week 1 would be a great way to open the season.
Even if what the Packers deserve has nothing to do with it, it’s been long enough. Change things up, for goodness’ sake.