GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers will face the New York Giants when they play their first-ever game in London on Oct. 9.
The league on Wednesday morning announced the five overseas matchups. The rest of the schedule will be unveiled on May 12.
Though they played preseason games in Toronto in 1997, Japan in 1998 and Winnipeg in 2019, this will mark the Packers’ first international game that counts. The league’s other 31 teams have played in London.
Green Bay will be the home team but isn’t losing a home game, per se. With the expanded 17-game schedule, which debuted last year, the Packers were set to play nine home games this season. With this one in London, the Packers instead will play at Lambeau Field eight times. That’s the same number of home games they’ve had every year since the strike-shortened season of 1982.
“The games in Green Bay are so important to the local economy that we’ve always been reluctant to give up a home game,” Packers President Mark Murphy said when it was announced in February that the team would play in London. “The other side is, in terms of when we’re the visiting team, we travel so well that teams that would be hosting us are reluctant to give up a home game against the Packers. But with the league move to the 17-game season, we knew this was a possibility and we’re really excited about it.”
The game will be played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. When Miami and Jacksonville played there last season, 60,784 fans were in attendance. The stadium, while the Premier League home for Tottenham Hotspur, was designed specifically for NFL games and hosted its first professional football game in 2019.
The Packers had a number of inviting home games on the schedule to play overseas, including against the Super Bowl-champion Los Angeles Rams, Dallas Cowboys and Tennessee Titans. However, the early-morning nature of the London games – kickoff will be at 8:30 a.m. Central – means they’re not played in a prime viewing window in the United States.
Thus, most of the London games have been the equivalent of blood pudding rather than renowned fish and chips. A total of 30 games have been played in London. Exactly zero of them featured two teams that wound up making the playoffs that season. Last year’s games featured the Jaguars vs. the Dolphins and the Falcons vs. the Jets. Those teams went a combined 23-45 and were outscored by 576 points. Only 26.7 percent of the participants qualified for the playoffs.
With Aaron Rodgers back for a 15th season as Green Bay’s starter, at least the Packers figure to give the London fans a high-quality product.
While it stubbed its toe in the playoffs once again, Green Bay is coming off an unprecedented third consecutive season of 13 wins. Rodgers is the four-time MVP quarterback and Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon form one of the best running back tandems in the NFL. On the other side of the ball, the league’s ninth-ranked defense not only will return mostly intact but added first-round picks Quay Walker and Devonte Wyatt.
The Giants finished 4-13 last season and fired coach Joe Judge after two years on the job. Quarterback Danny Jones, the sixth pick in the 2019 draft, has thrown 21 touchdowns vs. 17 interceptions the past two seasons and finished 26th in passer rating last year. The defense, anchored by former Packers linebacker Blake Martinez, finished 23rd in points allowed.
However, they should be better in 2022 under new coach Brian Daboll after using the fifth overall pick on defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux and the seventh overall pick on offensive tackle Evan Neal.
The Giants beat Miami 13-10 in London in the first-ever International Series game in 2007. They also beat the Rams in 2016.
Green Bay leads the all-time series 34-26-2, including 5-3 in the playoffs. The Giants won the first matchup, 6-0, on Oct. 7, 1928. Green Bay has won the last three meetings, including 31-13 on Dec. 1, 2019.
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