With the start of the Packers season just days away, fans were treated to a familiar sight on Wednesday afternoon: A long Packers injury report listing much more players than their opponents, the Detroit Lions.
Nothing tells us football is back more than a smattering of Packers players listed as limited in practice due to thumbs, shoulders, hips, knees, hamstrings, calves and anything in between.
It doesn't require a genius to make the educated assumption that no, the Packers are not actually bombarded with injuries every single week of every single year. This is instead the product of an overly cautious medical staff combined with Green Bay's lawful appreciation of NFL guidelines.
The league has fined teams before for not disclosing injuries on the report such as the Jets in 2009 with Brett Favre's arm, and the Steelers in 2019 with Ben Roethlisberger's elbow. While these $100,000 fines were little more than slaps on the wrist for high-profile QB injuries, and it's rare the NFL will drop the hammer on the Packers for not listing a player like Savion Williams as limited, the Packers have always kept with the practice of disclosing all knocks, no matter how minor they may appear.
There is no exact way to quantify injuries as it's difficult to strike the balance between quantity and severity. Numerous metrics state the Packers have suffered an above-average amount of injury setbacks over the past 5+ years — ranking as high as the 3rd most injury-prone team in the NFL by some measurements.
(If you really are willing to die on the hill that the Packers have the worst strength and conditioning set up in the NFL, which I don't agree with, then I'd like to point you in the direction of their willingness to draft players with injury history in recent years. I could make a decent argument than neither Jaire Alexander or Christian Watson would have fell as far as they did in their respective drafts had it not been for a mildly concerning injury history for both players through high school and college). But that's a conversation for another day. We're here to talk about actual injury reports.
Over Green Bay's last 30 games, dating back to Week 10 of 2023, they have had a longer final injury report than their opponents 24 times. They've been tied once, and on five occasions (all towards the tail end of last season) did their opponents have a longer injury report.
24-5-1 is one hell of a record in any context. The Packers happen to hold that record in just about the worst category possible. This includes a 19-game streak from mid-2023 until Thanksgiving 2024 when Green Bay finally got some rest during their Bye week and came back with shorter injury reports in 4 of their next 5 games.
Their fifth and final 'shorter' injury report came in the playoffs last year against the Eagles were although Green Bay had one fewer player listed on the report itself, they had 7 players with final injury designations (Out, Questionable etc.) compared to the Eagles' 2. The Packers were undoubtedly the more banged up team entering that game.
The Packers currently have 9 players listed on the report for Week 1 compared to just 4 for Detroit. Their Week 2 Thursday night opponents, the Washington Commanders, have just 5 listed. After an August with more injuries than Matt LaFleur would have wanted, there's a decent chance the Packers start the season 2-0 (or 0-2) on the injury report once again.