Green Bay’s final five opponents have combined to lose two-thirds of their games this NFL season.
After all of Week 13’s NFC action, the New York Times’ playoff machine has the Green Bay Packers making the wildcard cut on 71 percent of simulations. One reason for this, despite the Packers having just a .500 record, is Green Bay’s strength of schedule moving forward.
With the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs in the Packers’ rearview mirror, Green Bay has the easiest remaining schedule in the entire NFL in the final five weeks of the season. According to Tankathon , the Packers’ next five opponents have a combined win percentage of .333 this season — the lowest mark in the league for remaining schedules. Four of the five teams Green Bay will finish out the season against have a losing record, with the exception being the .500 Minnesota Vikings , who will be starting a backup quarterback.
For comparison, the three teams who are currently jostling with the Packers for the final two wildcard spots are the Vikings, the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams . The Vikings still have to play the Packers once and the Lions twice this season. The Seahawks have to play the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers , the top teams in the NFC. The Rams also have to play the 49ers as well as the Baltimore Ravens .
As long as the Packers go 3-2 or better against a cupcake schedule, they’ll probably get a ticket for the postseason. What an incredible turnaround for a team that was 2-5 and were sellers on Halloween’s trade deadline.
Somehow, this schedule has lined up perfectly for a young team catching its stride. Now that the Packers have closed the door on a tough two-game stretch, they can coast for the rest of the season with seventh-seed positioning in the NFC playoffs already in hand.
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Justis Mosqueda wrote:
Giants 4-8
Buccaneers 5-7
Panthers 1-11
Vikings 6-6
Bears 4-8
Giants have the weakest OL in football, if Packers don't beat them, they don't deserve to be in the playoffs. Though 2 of the Giants wins have come in the last two weeks, but they have faced the offensive less Patriots and Commanders whom have traded away their best two pass rushers.
Buccaneers started hot at 3-1 but have gone 2-6 since with both wins coming against rookie starting QBs, wearing blue with weak offense in Titans and Panthers.
Panthers, 1-11 ... they barely beat the Texans by keeping them under 13 points. Of course that being said, some of their losses were closer than you would expect. 3 point to Saints, Bears and Buccaneers.
Vikings, they all over the place, 1-4 to start the season, despite looking amazing other than averaging 2.4 turnovers per game. Then 5-0... and now 0-2. It seems to be all about the turnovers. In 4 of the Vikings 6 losses, they turned the ball over 3 or more times. They're 2-1 when they turn the ball over only twice. 4-1 when they only tun the ball over once or less. The last two games have been 3 and 4 turnover games.
Bears, after starting 0-4, they have been. 4-4 the last 8 games including 2-1 the last 3 which include the Panthers and Vikings. Though, they almost lost to the Vikings even those the Vikings turned the ball over a ton. They also got a ton of turnovers against the Lions, but gave up the lead in that game. So a ton of turn overs their last two games.