Packers Will Play All Remaining Undefeated Teams

With the Monday night game pending, there are three teams with zero losses and only two teams with zero wins.
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – There aren’t many zeroes in the standings, a fact that probably has NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wanting to hug somebody.

With the Monday night game to be played, there are only two teams that are 3-0: the Philadelphia Eagles and the Miami Dolphins. The New York Giants could join them if they knock off the visiting Dallas Cowboys on Monday night.

Whether it winds up being two or three clubs with 3-0 records, the Packers will play all the remaining undefeated teams – none of them at Lambeau Field: The Packers will play the Giants in London in two weeks, at the Eagles in Week 12 and at the Dolphins in Week 16.

The parity, of course, is what the NFL wants. Through three weeks, there were five teams that were undefeated in 2021, six in 2020 and seven in 2019.

On the other hand, according to NFL Research, only two teams are winless: the Houston Texans (0-2-1) and Las Vegas Raiders (0-3). This is only the second time in three decades that two teams have zero wins through three weeks.

“Frustration is OK. It's not the end of the world to be frustrated,” former Packers receiver Davante Adams, who was traded to Las Vegas during the offseason, said after catching five passes for only 36 yards in a 24-22 loss at Tennessee.

“I don't think anybody in here should be happy or content with losing seriously, when you have the type of men we have in this locker room. And like I said from the very beginning, just because we're good on paper doesn't mean we're going to be great as a team. We’re still working toward that, and it’s still early. But we’ve got to start establishing who we are as a team. So, like I said, frustration is OK as long as you do something about it.”

Through this early portion of the season, the NFC North – supposedly the Packers and everybody else – is 7-5. As part of the NFL’s schedule rotation, the Packers are facing the teams from the NFC East and AFC East. The NFC East has gone from NFC Least to NFC Beast. After Monday night, that division will be a combined 8-4 – most wins for any division. The AFC East, headlined by Miami and Buffalo, is a combined 7-5.

The Packers have opened the season with a loss at Minnesota, a home win vs. Chicago and a win at Tampa Bay. All three of those teams are 2-1, meaning a cumulative record of 6-3. Again, it’s early, but no team has faced a more difficult schedule.

“If you would’ve said in the offseason we’d be 2-1 after three with these two tough road games,” said quarterback Aaron Rodgers, “I’d say that’s probably pretty good, considering that you would expect Minnesota and Tampa Bay to be in the top seven teams at the end of the season, so I feel good about that.”


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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.