The Green Bay Packers opened their 2025 season with two statement wins over the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders — both of whom finished among the NFC’s top four teams last year. Confidence was sky-high as they headed to Ohio as 7.5-point favorites over the Cleveland Browns, a game they were expected to win.

However, Matt LaFleur’s team went on to lay an egg on the road against a winless Cleveland squad, falling 13-10. The Browns scored all 13 of their points in the final five minutes as Green Bay completely collapsed down the stretch.

The following week, Green Bay’s offense exploded for 40 points against a Dallas Cowboys defense that was off to a historically bad start. The problem? Their own defense also gave up 40. Sure, Dak Prescott had an outlier performance, but the Packers couldn’t stop a nosebleed after Devonte Wyatt left with an injury. At that point, they sat at 2-1-1 heading into the bye week — with both their offense and defense riding a roller coaster of performances in back-to-back games.

After the bye, Green Bay pulled out close wins against the Cincinnati Bengals and Arizona Cardinals. Don’t let the 27-18 score over Cincinnati fool you — the Packers were only up by one score with just minutes left in the fourth quarter. Still, those are the kinds of wins good football teams need to have, and they took care of business. Even so, it was striking how the offensive play-calling continued to do Jordan Love and company no favors.

Things got off to a strange start in Week 8 at Pittsburgh. The Packers jumped out to a 7-3 lead, but the offense stalled, and they went into halftime trailing 16-7. Then Jordan Love put on a complete masterclass in the second half, finishing with 20 straight completions, 360 yards, and three touchdowns — earning NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors.

But in Week 9, the high vanished as quickly as it came. The Packers found no rhythm against a middling Carolina Panthers team, and the defense couldn’t stop the run. Green Bay fell 16-13 in what was the biggest upset of the NFL season — the Packers were 13.5-point favorites — and, per ESPN research, it tied their largest upset loss since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.

The story of the 2024 Packers was that they couldn’t beat the top teams, going 0-6 against the Philadelphia Eagles, Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions. This year, though, the story has flipped. The 2025 Packers have found too many ways to complicate things against inferior opponents. They’ll enter Week 10 with only two losses — to the Browns and the Panthers, the latter of which was blown out 40-9 by the Buffalo Bills just last week.

The Packers aren’t a bad team by any stretch. At 5-2-1, they lead the only division where all four teams are at .500 or better, but they’ve been inconsistent in all three phases. Can we really call them Super Bowl contenders? Maybe not just yet. Still, the media has pegged them as a top-five team for most of the season, so they’re at least in the conversation — even if their play hasn’t always lived up to the hype.