The Packers fought hard for everything they won last year. After a rollercoaster season that saw them lose six games, they found their way into the postseason through the wild card slot.
Yes, the Eagles put an end to whatever wild dreams were going through the minds of cheeseheads watching at home but the resulting message was clear. This is a team that is willing to fight. Turn a bad season into something that is—if not a brilliant season, than at least a respectable one.
The Packers are showing championship racehorse grit. Can they carry it into 2025?
What does it mean to play football like a championship racehorse?
The analogy refers primarily to the type of mindset it takes to succeed. To be really successful at any sport, you need an underdog mentality. In horse racing, there are always favorites and predictions and tons of odds-making. The accuracy of these forecasts is questionable at best. Even the most sophisticated predictive models frequently fail in this sport.
It’s not that the research is poor or the numbers that the analysts are studying are incomplete. It’s that the events are, by design, as volatile as possible.
Horses often only have two minutes to do what needs to be done. In that short of a time frame, almost anything can happen. A single misstep or burst of unexpected speed can change everything.
It’s for that reason that some people do very well at horse racing betting on the underdogs. If you are interested in trying to turn a modest bet into a tidy return, consider taking advantage of some horse racing promotions.
For a little more context, let’s go back to football. The worst team in the NFL can give the best team a headache for two minutes, right? Any team can execute a perfect drive occasionally. As the game stretches out, the better team typically prevails, but the shorter the moment, the less predictable it is. The compressed timeframe creates an opportunity for surprise outcomes.
People who train horses do so with that understanding in mind. They prepare for both opportunity and adversity. It doesn’t matter what successes you and your animal have had in the past. It doesn’t matter what the analysts are saying. You can’t go in presuming victory. Nor, for that matter, should you assume defeat. Champions maintain both humility and confidence simultaneously.
That’s the flip side of the equation. To say that anything can happen is to invite the possibility that a lukewarm team, like the Packers were last season, can still find their way into the postseason. It’s to say further that they can go all the way. Seven wild card teams have won the Super Bowl to date. One of them was the Green Bay Packers back in 2010.
Do they have what it takes in 2025?
Cheeseheads everywhere are hoping to see the Packers improve upon their 2024 season. Do they have what it takes?
Green Bay will (presumably) go in with a healthy Jordan Love. The star quarterback played consistently through pain last year. First a groin injury, then his knee, and finally a hurt elbow. These injuries significantly limited his performance at critical moments. Naturally, every team relies heavily on its starting quarterback and Love in particular is the sort of player who can be a true difference maker. His ability to extend plays creates scoring opportunities other quarterbacks simply can’t generate.
For his part, he has acknowledged how his injuries contributed to a tepid season without directly blaming them. “I think, you look at this year, me, battling through injury. So, having that adversity that I’m trying to fight through. Several injuries. So it was a lot of that. A lot of fighting through, trying to get my mind right for the game, and trying to fight through some pain, things like that. It was an inconsistent year.”
They’ll also need to make good use of their 23rd-draft pick. Obviously, that late in the rotation, you aren’t necessarily acquiring the most highly coveted rookie, but you can still pick up momentum.
Smart selections in this range have transformed franchises before. They could really use a good wide receiver. They haven’t had a 1,000-yard-wide receiver since 2021. Landing one in the draft could do a lot to strengthen their offensive play. A legitimate deep threat would completely change their offensive dynamics.
Based on their historical use of the first-round draft pick, that’s not likely to happen. To date, the Packers have only chosen four wide receivers with their first-round pick since 1967.
That’s not to say that they are one wide receiver short of a Super Bowl run. Writing in the Spring it is always so hard to say what any team will do come Fall. It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. So much harder to make the choices that actually lead a team to success.
Here’s what is true: With grit, determination, good luck, and good health, the Packers do have a chance at a good year.