The Power Sweep

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Analyzing the Packers' 2017 Schedule

Jon Meerdink

The Packers’ 2017 schedule is out! How does it break down? Which games will be highlights and which will be duds? We can’t say unless we look at all of them in exhaustive detail. Let’s do it!

Week 1 - Home vs. Seattle Seahawks

  • Details: The Packers start their season at home against the Seattle Seahawks. This will probably be FOX’s game of the week, and you know what that means: a national audience will get to see the Packers take on the Seahawks.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: The coin toss will be either heads or tails, an event entirely independent of each coin toss before it no matter how many consecutive results have come up heads or tails.

Week 2 - @ Atlanta Falcons

  • Details: The Packers head back to the site of the 2016 NFC Championship game for their first prime time matchup of the season. This will be Atlanta’s first regular season game in its lavish new stadium, unless construction delays push back the opening even further than expected.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: Atlanta will wear one of its non-throwback uniforms, which is a real shame. Their throwbacks are awesome.

Week 3 - Home vs. Cincinnati Bengals

  • Details: Milwaukee-area fans will get their first regular season opportunity to tell other fans to sit down with this Gold Package game. This will be the first CBS game of the year. Maybe Tony Romo will show up in the broadcast booth. Or, if someone gets hurt, maybe he’ll show up on the field!
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: Someone will wear an A.J. Hawk Bengals jersey to Lambeau Field for some reason.

Week 4 - Home vs. Chicago Bears

  • Details: This Thursday night contest will be broadcast by three media outlets: CBS, NFL Network, and Amazon, which paid a lot of money for the rights to stream this game. It’s really easy to see why they did, since Thursday night contests are always great and are never plagued by fatigued players or generally poor play. Roger Goodell made me type that last sentence. Please send help. I am being held against my will.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: Remember last year when the Packers wore white pants? I predict they won’t do that this time.

Week 5 - @ Dallas Cowboys

  • Details: Another afternoon kickoff on FOX against a marquee opponent. This will probably be the Game of the Week,  so you know what that means: a national audience will get to see the Packers take on the Cowboys.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: If you think the Packers are going to be able to fool the Cowboys with that crazy sideline pass play this time, think again: the Cowboys have it on tape now, so it’ll never work.

Week 6 - @ Minnesota Vikings

  • Details: It’s a noon kickoff for the Packers’ second trip to the new stadium in Minneapolis, which is safe for birds and was responsibly funded.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: *horn noise*

Week 7 - Home vs. New Orleans Saints

  • Details: This will be just the second noon kickoff of the year for the Packers, which is a shame because noon kickoffs are better than late kickoffs. You can take a nap after the game if you want, or you can watch the afternoon slate in the afterglow of a Packers victory. They’re almost as good as Thursday night games, which are the best. Please let me go home now.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: You know how there’s that one song about saints and traveling in a militaristic fashion? Someone will make 37 puns about that.

Week 8 - Bye Week

  • Details: The Packers have a bye this week. They will not play.
  • Analysis: Week 8 seems like one of the best 8-10 weeks you could have a bye, especially if your team has some injuries.
  • Prediction: Sportswriters have already pre-written their columns about how the Packers are going into the bye on a high note with a win or how they’ll need to use the bye week to regroup after a loss.

Week 9 - Home vs. Detroit Lions

  • Details: The Packers will host the freshly rebranded Lions for their only Monday night game of the year. Gold Package fans will be on hand to tell people to sit down under the lights.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: Someone will call this a rematch of last year’s NFC North title game, even though probably 40% of the players will be different.

Week 10 - @ Chicago Bears

  • Details: The Packers get their chance at a season sweep of the Bears or a chance to get revenge on the Bears depending on the outcome of the earlier game. It will happen in noon. In Chicago.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: The Bears will still have overpaid for Mike Glennon at this point of the season.

Week 11 - Home vs. Baltimore Ravens

  • Details: The push towards the playoffs begins at Lambeau Field with a noon kickoff against the Ravens. That is, of course, assuming that the Packers are in the playoff hunt. It’s hard to say. The season is very far away.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: I had a grade school friend who developed an enormous affinity for Ray Lewis and assured me that he would single handedly lay waste to the Packers when the Ravens came to Lambeau Field in 1998. I maintained that Lewis would not turn the course of that game. Ray Lewis had one tackle that day and the Ravens lost.

    Anyway, I predict that Ray Lewis will again not affect the outcome of this game.

Week 12 - @ Pittsburgh Steelers

  • Details: This will be the first time since Super Bowl XLV that the Packers will play the Steelers in prime time and the first time since 2005 that the Packers and Steelers have played before December. Mr. Goodell said that I had to try to write actual facts. Please help me.

  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.

  • Prediction: Someone will have made a misguided comment about football being like war in the preceding month, given that November is when the NFL turns into a monthlong military tribute machine.

 

Week 13 - Home vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

  • Details: Remember how the Packers traded Brett Favre in 2008? It would have been funny if they’d sent him to the Buccaneers. That was a legit thing that almost happened. The Packers and Buccaneers will play at noon in December, which is a good time for football games to begin.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: Someone will bring up Doug Martin’s “Muscle Hamster” nickname. That person will be me, because it’s a hilariously gross nickname. Nicknames are the best. There should be more nicknames.

Week 14 - @ Cleveland Browns

  • Details: This game is part of the NFL’s flex scheduling lineup. There is no way this game does not happen at noon. If this game is flexed something terribly strange has happened. And yet...
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: I have a confession: I don’t hate the Browns’ relatively new uniforms. I don’t have a good explanation as to why. Are they a bit ridiculous? Sure. Are they terrible? Not really, and they could be worse. I predict I will still like them in December.

Week 15 - @ Carolina Panthers

  • Details: The Packers visit the Carolina Perpetual Controversies for the first time since 2015. The NFL is surely eyeballing this one for a flex, but once again…
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: Cam Newton will do between one and eight things that upset people for no reason between now and when this game is played.

Week 16 - Home vs. Minnesota Vikings

  • Details: For the second year in a row, the Packers will play the Vikings at home in the second to last game of the season. This is a glitch in the matrix or something.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: It is currently closer to the last Week 16 the Packers and Vikings played than to this game. By a long way. Really makes you #think.

Week 17 - @ Detroit Lions

  • Details: For the second year in a row, the Packers will play the Lions on the road in the last game of the season. This is a glitch in the matrix or something.
  • Analysis: This could be a very difficult or easy game depending on what happens over the next few months. It’s really too early to tell.
  • Prediction: I don’t know. Nothing interesting ever happens in Packers/Lions games.