The buzz around the Packers this season starts and ends with Jordan Love, and it’s not hard to see why. A lot of the belief that Green Bay can make a real Super Bowl push out of the NFC is tied to Love taking another step forward.
One AFC coach is already talking like that leap is coming. “Jordan Love has been getting better,” an AFC coach told Between The Hashmarks. “He’s been in that system for a while, and this is the year the Packers finally break through.”
There’s also a growing sense that Love’s ceiling might be even higher than that. One NFL executive is bullish enough to think he could work his way into the MVP conversation.
But for all the confidence around Love, the Packers’ offense may still come down to a much less glamorous issue: protection. If Green Bay can’t keep him upright, none of the bigger dreams matter much.
Pro Football Focus has Love ranked No. 6 among quarterbacks before the season, but it also flags the offensive line as a major variable in how far he can go. The numbers back up the optimism when the pocket holds. PFF says Love posted a 94.2 passing grade from a clean pocket, while pairing a 5.9% big-time throw rate, fifth in the league, with a 2.6% turnover-worthy play rate, ninth.
That’s the formula Green Bay has to chase. More clean pockets.
Fewer hits. And, most importantly, fewer than the 35 sacks Love has taken over his past 30 games.
If the Packers can get that part right in 2026, their offense has a much better shot at hitting its ceiling.
In Other News...
Packers Rookie Pass Rusher Could Matter Faster Than Anyone Expected
Dani Dennis-Sutton arrived in Green Bay with a reputation that suggests the Packers may not have to wait long to see what they have. The fourth-round pick out of Penn State was one of the more disruptive edge players in the Big Ten last season, leading the conference in pressures per game while finishing a productive college run that gave him a steady climb into the draft conversation.
For a Packers defense that always values waves of pass rushers, Dennis-Sutton already fits the kind of profile that can earn snaps quickly. He is expected to compete for a role in the rotation while also helping on special teams, which gives him more than one path onto the field as he makes the jump from college standout to NFL contributor. [Read more 🡒]
Matthew Golden May Have Found The Fastest Way Into LaFleurs Trust
Matthew Golden came into this year looking for a cleaner path to a bigger role in Green Bay, and the early signs suggest he may have found one in the less glamorous parts of the job. After a rookie regular season that ended without a touchdown, the second-year receiver has drawn notice from Matt LaFleur for the kind of work coaches always remember: blocking, moving without the ball and doing the little things that help an offense stay on schedule.
Goldens production in 2025 never quite matched the promise, with 14 games, 361 receiving yards and no regular-season scores, though he did find the end zone in the playoff loss. Even so, LaFleurs praise points to a player earning trust in ways that do not always show up first on the stat sheet, and that matters in Green Bay as Golden tries to turn quiet progress into a true breakout. [Read more 🡒]
Packers Just Linked Lambeaus Future To A Tough New Reality
The Packers annual stockholders meeting always puts their unusual ownership model in the spotlight, and this years financial release did the same. Team president Ed Policy pointed out the obvious constraint that comes with being publicly owned: Green Bay cannot tap private equity the way many other NFL franchises can, so any major long-range stadium plan has to be built with a different kind of discipline and a lot of advance coordination.
That reality makes Lambeau Fields future feel less like a simple renovation question and more like a civic project. The organization still has substantial reserves, but Policy said the next phase of upgrades would likely require long-term planning with local and state governments, leaving open the possibility that public funding could become part of the conversation when the time comes. [Read more 🡒]