Mike McCarthy used to call teams like the Jaguars “uncommon opponents.” I love that description, and I love that things like uncommon opponents exist because of the way the NFL’s schedule rotation works.

The Lions, Vikings, and Bears (oh my!) we all know. We know what they’re about. We know their players and their coaches. Their uniforms are familiar. We hate them because we know them as much as anything else, and we know them because we see them all the time. They’re like family, in a way. We’re stuck with them.

The Jaguars? They’re distant cousins, at best. We see them every four years or so, and it’s never for anything significant. They’re not in the NFC North, so there will never be any kind of divisional rivalry, and there’s not even a chance the Packers will see the Jaguars in the playoffs, unless it’s in the Super Bowl. This unfamiliarity is only enhanced by the Jaguars’ relative youth on the NFL timescale. Only the Houston Texans are a younger franchise, and since the Jaguars are way over there in the other conference, the Packers haven’t seen them enough to have any kind of shared history.

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