The Green Bay Packers’ 2026 schedule isn’t an easy one.
Packers opponents were 126-111-1 in 2025, a 53.8% winning percentage, tying the Packers with the Arizona Cardinals for third-toughest schedule in the league, behind the Chicago Bears at 55% and the Miami Dolphins at 54.2%. The Packers play eight games against seven opponents who made the playoffs in 2025.
The Packers’ popularity nationally was accounted for with the full quota of six prime-time games, including a rare Wednesday night game against the Rams in Los Angeles the night before Thanksgiving. If you count the noon game on Christmas Day against the Bears in Chicago, they will make seven nationally televised appearances, five of them at Lambeau Field.
Here are some thoughts on each of the games and opponents this season, subject to change when football really begins:
Minnesota Vikings
Worth noting: Vince Lombardi didn’t like the Minnesota Vikings (or coach Bud Grant, who seemed to enjoy poking Lombardi) and Packers fans followed that lead for the last six decades. The teams are deadlocked in the Matt LaFleur era and it seems not to matter what sort of season each team is having, or where they are playing. Since letting Sam Darnold escape to Seattle after the 2024 season, the Vikings have been in quarterback purgatory. Darnold led the Seahawks to a Super Bowl championship in 2025 while the Vikings had a rotating cast of quarterbacks. That said, they finished the season with five consecutive victories, but are starting this year with the quarterback question unresolved. Will it be Carson Wentz, Kyler Murray, J.J. McCarthy or Max Brosmer? If history is any indication, whoever it is will be a challenge to the Packers.
New York Jets
Worth noting: The Packers won three of the last four meetings, dating to 2010, which means before that they were 2-8 against the Jets. Aside from being the place where old Packers go to have bad seasons, the Jets seem like as dysfunctional a team as exists in the NFL. It’s hard to remember they were in back-to-back AFC championship games in 2009 and 2010 (they lost both). That makes them more recently successful than the Dallas Cowboys. First-year coach Aaron Glenn fired his coordinators after a 3-14 season (a year without a single defensive interception, an NFL first.)
On the hopeful side, if Jets fans can remember that kind of thinking, USA TODAY ranked the Jets’ draft as the best in the NFL, the only team to get an A-plus. The Packers play them early in the season, so all that new blood might not have had time to settle in.
This will be the third time in four years the Packers play in MetLife Stadium, so traveling fans will know the drill.
Atlanta Falcons
Worth noting: Another team with quarterback issues, the Falcons tied with the Carolina Panthers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC South last season, but missed the playoffs on tie breakers. The Packers will play with only three days’ rest.
Packers fans hate it when fans of other teams show up at Lambeau Field. This shouldn’t be one of those games. Falcons fans don’t travel like Lions and Bears fans, and it’s a Thursday night game, which means taking time off work for many. There are direct flights from Atlanta to Green Bay, but given the state of the economy, they are not cheap flights. Fans might balk at spending $600 to $900 for a two-day trip to see a Falcons game.
Whether being a Thursday night game is good for Packers fans is another matter.
Night game home openers are not new for the Packers. They played the Bears on Sunday nights in 2018 and 2022 and the Lions on Monday night in 2021.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Worth noting: The Bucs were another member of the 8-9 trio in the NFC South, like the Falcons missing the playoffs on tie breakers. Tampa Bay has Baker Mayfield at quarterback and chances are it will be 80-plus degrees and humid. On the plus side, the Packers have nine days off after the Atlanta game.
Chicago Bears
Worth noting: The rivalry is back on, for real, not just as tradition. The Bears beat the Packers twice (in three games) in 2025 in inexplicable come-from-behind victories at Soldier Field, the last one in the wild card round of the playoffs. Bears coach Ben Johnson enjoys riling the Packers from the podium and there’s no reason to expect he’ll let up this season, on or off the field. The Bears have the toughest schedule in the league heading into the season, so they might have a hard time hanging onto first place in the NFC North.
The Bears’ draft didn’t particularly excite USA TODAY’s analysts, who gave them a C grade compared to the Packers’ A-minus, but the NFC North might be the best-coached division in the NFL, so every game against a division opponent will be an alley fight. That goes double for Packers-Bears.
The Christmas game will be on Netflix, which might be a problem for Packers fans outside Green Bay and Milwaukee.
Dallas Cowboys
Worth noting: The Cowboys, for fans who are old enough to remember the 1970s through 1990s, always seem like they are an elite team, or should be. Maybe it’s because they strut even when they are having a 4-12 season, but they haven’t been to a Super Bowl or NFC championship game since 1995.
In any case, the Packers and Cowboys always seem to have dramatic games, dating back to the 1966 season’s NFL championship game, the Ice Bowl the following year, the games in the early 1990s, where the Cowboys were an annual obstacle to the Super Bowl, the Dez Bryant catch/non-catch in the 2014 playoffs, the Packers playoff victories in Dallas in 2017 and 2024, and last year’s tie game in Dallas after the Micah Parsons trade. Phew!
Which is why the NFL made this the second of five prime time games at Lambeau Field in 2026.
Detroit Lions
Worth noting: Two seasons ago, the Lions were the team to beat in the NFC North (not to mention the NFC as a whole). They beat the Packers twice. Last season, the Packers reestablished their preferred relationship with Detroit, beating them twice, only to have the Chicago Bears become a serious obstacle. USA TODAY ranked the Packers’ 2026 draft a half-grade better than the Lions, who didn’t seem themselves after losing both their offensive and defensive coordinators before the 2025 season.
The Lions could have played the Packers in Munich, Germany, this season, but reportedly opted to meet the Packers at Ford Field. Clearly, they didn’t do that to ensure a sellout, as many teams do when playing the Packers. It had to be because they wanted whatever home-field advantage they could derive. It should be noted, the Packers are 4-3 against the Lions in Detroit under Matt LaFleur.
Carolina Panthers
Worth noting: Matt LaFleur had his way with the Panthers until last year’s loss at Lambeau Field. Both teams hovered around .500, but managed to make the playoffs, where both lost close games in the wild card round. The Panthers were 5-12 in 2024 and won only three more games in 2025, but it was enough to finish first on tie breakers over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons in the slightly-less-than mediocre NFC South.
The NFL made this a Thursday night prime time game, although it hardly seems a dream match. But it’s more about the Packers being on a nationally televised game than the Panthers.
New England Patriots
Worth noting: A marquee matchup between Jordan Love and Drake Maye. There is some question whether the Patriots are as good as last year’s record indicates. They had the weakest schedule in the NFL, but they did make it past the Houston Texans and Denver Broncos to get to the Super Bowl. Where they were easily handled by the Seattle Seahawks. A Sunday afternoon game in Foxborough in November will probably feel a lot like Green Bay to Packers fans.
Distraction over the affairs of Patriots coach Mike Vrabel should be resolved by the time this game is played.
Los Angeles Rams
Worth noting: Since 2019, the Rams have been one of the most successful teams in the NFL, even winning a Super Bowl in 2021. And since 2019 they are 0-5 against Matt LaFleur and the Packers.
The game will be on Netflix, which adds fuel to the concern that fans and politicians have about the growing cost of watching NFL games. In Green Bay and Milwaukee, the game will be available to fans on local TV, but for the rest of the country, it’s Netflix or nothing. Offering games to streaming sites such as Netflix and Amazon is part of the NFL’s efforts to profit from every available revenue source, which in turn increases the amount of revenue sharing teams get, an important source of income for the Packers. But fans and elected officials are pushing back on what that does to the cost of watching games. It is a developing issue.
New Orleans Saints
Worth noting: The Saints were the only team in the NFC South that didn’t finish 8-9. The Saints have a young quarterback in Tyler Shough and high hopes after a draft that critics didn’t hate. And for Packers fans, a trip to New Orleans in early December could be appealing. The Super Bowl will not return there in the foreseeable future, so it would be a good time to go.
Buffalo Bills
Worth noting: Another marquee matchup, between quarterbacks Jordan Love and Josh Allen. The NFL apparently thinks so, anyway. This gets the prime time game treatment, the fourth at Lambeau Field during the season.
The Bills have a new coach in former offensive coordinator Joe Brady. Sean McDermott was fired after the 2025 season despite having a 106-58 record in nine years in Buffalo. Despite all that success, he was only 8-8 in the playoffs and never made it to the Super Bowl. The NFL is a tough business.
Miami Dolphins
Worth noting: No matter what their records are, this will be a game of great interest to Packers fans: Matt LaFleur versus Jeff Hafley. Jordan Love vs. Malik Willis, a host of former Packers coaches now on the Miami staff. Because this game is so late in the year, the Dolphins should be past the initial learning curve of a new coaching staff and new quarterback, but they will be a warm-weather team playing in Green Bay in December.
Houston Texans
Worth noting: Houston is the final 2025 playoff team and final night game at Lambeau Field (excluding possible playoffs) on the Packers’ schedule. It will be cold on Jan. 4 (colder than in Houston at least) and the Packers’ fourth consecutive cold-weather game. That should be an advantage, and given the strength of NFC North teams, will probably be a crucial game for Green Bay’s playoff hopes.
A caveat on night games: The season finale against Detroit might be an important game as well. The NFL will decide how important in December.
Contact Richard Ryman at rryman@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X at @RichRymanPG and on Instagram at @rrymanPG.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Breaking down Packers’ tough 2026 schedule team by team
Reporting by Richard Ryman, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
