Acme Packing Company
Detroit will have the hardest start to 2025, while Green Bay is expected to have one of the easiest, if not the easiest, first half of the season
As our own Zach Rapport has already written, the Green Bay Packers’ easiest stretch of the season is going to be the first half of their schedule, notably Week 2 through Week 6 of 2025. Beyond Zach’s analysis, Warren Sharp of Sharp Football has noted that the Packers have the second-easiest strength of schedule from Week 1 to Week 11 in the NFL, based on forecasted win totals. Mind you, that includes playing the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football, a game that the Eagles will enter off a bye week. If you cut the list to just Week 1 to Week 9, there’s a good chance the Packers have the easiest schedule in the league to start the regular season.
So why focus on Week 11 as a cutoff? Because that’s when the Detroit Lions’ hell stretch ends. As Sharp pointed out, all of the Lions’ first six road games are against teams that are expected to win at least nine games this upcoming season, five of which made the playoffs in 2024.
There will be ebbs and flows to the NFC North title race in 2025. There’s no doubt about it, but the Packers and Lions will likely be coming out of very different stretches of their season when they face off for the second time on Thanksgiving in Week 13. Green Bay will be midway through their toughest slate of the season, filled with divisional games, an Eagles game where Philadelphia is afforded extra rest, a road game at elevation versus the Denver Broncos and a late-season game against the Baltimore Ravens, while Detroit’s schedule will finally start to let up a little bit.
That Thanksgiving game could prove to be a pivot point for both teams, the NFC North race and the NFC playoff race as a whole. Keep that in mind going into 2025.
Click HERE to view the Packers’ full regular season schedule.
