GREEN BAY, Wis. – As crushing as it was, it’s not a surprise that the Green Bay Packers lost their season-opening game at the Vikings last week. In the grand scheme of the season, losing a rivalry road game isn’t the end of the world.

Losing to the New York Jets on Sunday might spell the end of the season.

The Packers have lost their first two games of the season 17 times in franchise history, and not since 2006. They’ve never reached the playoffs or won more than nine games. Only once did they manage to finish more than one win over .500 – almost 70 years ago in 1937.

Here are three reasons why the Jets will beat the Packers and perhaps bury them before they play their first home game.

1. Jets Pass Rush vs. Packers Protection

Last week’s game against the Vikings was a nightmare. By the official league stats, Jordan Love absorbed 15 hits; no other quarterback had to deal with double-digits hits. Love was under duress from the opening snap, but the dam burst once the Vikings took a 25-22 lead in the fourth quarter.

Green Bay’s pass protection, plain and simple, was horrendous. There were far too many unforced errors committed by a team that had two full weeks to prepare and should have had a good gauge of Brian Flores’ game plan.

““I’m not going to freak out or overreact or anything like that. This is the first game of a 17-game season,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said this week.

The Jets won’t challenge the Packers in quite the same fashion. But they have a formidable pass rush, led by edge rushers Will McDonald IV and David Bailey.

In the 2023 draft, the Packers and Jets flip-flopped positions in the first round via the Aaron Rodgers trade. With the 13th pick, the Packers selected Lukas Van Ness. With the 15th pick, the Jets grabbed McDonald.

McDonald, a native of Milwaukee, has 22.5 sacks, 26 tackles for losses and 49 quarterback hits in 48 career games. He had 10.5 sacks in 2024 and eight sacks in 2025. Van Ness in 44 career games has 9.5 sacks, 18 tackles for losses and 24 quarterback hits. His career-best season of four sacks came as a rookie.

Bailey was the second pick of this year’s draft. He led the nation with 14.5 sacks last season at Texas Tech.

McDonald, Bailey and former Packers player Kingsley Enagbare each had one sack last week against Tennessee. The Jets are third in the league in pass-rush win rate, according to ESPN. The Packers are last in pass-block win rate.

“It’s not good enough,” Stenavich said. “It’s not the standard. That’s not what we’re going to be about. We’ve got to be better.”

That’s the expectation.

“Keep 10 clean,” center Sean Rhyan said. “That’s been the main thing that we’ve been kind of getting not hammered on. But that’s our main goal as the O-line is to make sure he stays up, he stays comfortable, and let him do his thing because he’s going to f***ing take us out of some of those holes that we dig ourselves. Keeping him upright and comfortable.”

If they’re not better – much better – the Packers’ losing streak will hit seven games.

Bounce-back Pack?

In our weekly duo of stories, here are three reasons why the Packers will beat the Jets. ⬇️https://t.co/UdOzAFzeBn

— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) September 19, 20262. Lightning and Thunder

Green Bay’s run defense showed up at Minnesota. The Packers enter this game ranked third in the league with 3.15 yards allowed per carry. That’s obviously a small sample size but, other than one long run late in the game, they didn’t yield a run of longer than 8 yards all day.

The Jets will be more determined to run the ball. And they’ve got the horses to get it done with their lightning-and-thunder backfield of Breece Hall and Braelon Allen.

Coming off his first 1,000-yard rushing season, Hall ran for 102 yards (4.6 average) against the Titans last week. He’s a big-time receiving threat, highlighted by 76 receptions in 2023 and three consecutive seasons of more than 1,350 total yards.

Allen, the native of Fond du Lac, Wis., who the Jets drafted in the fourth round in 2024, is a freight train at 235 pounds. He had 10 carries for 40 yards in the opener.

The Jets have a quality offensive line and the Packers will line up without veteran defensive tackle Javon Hargrave, who is out with a concussion, and Warren Brinson, who is sidelined by a calf injury. Of Green Bay’s five healthy defensive tackles, Jonathan Ford has one career start, rookie Chris McClellan has played in one game and first-year player Anthony Campbell will be making his NFL debut.

“Breece is an incredible football player,” Jets offensive coordinator Frank Reich told reporters in New York this week. “This guy understands football at such a high level, it’s hard to explain. I literally feel like he can play any position on the field. He just has a very high level of understanding of everything and obviously is a super talented runner. That makes us want to have him on the field every play.

“One of the things that I’m super-excited about is that one-two punch of him and Braelon Allen. That’s a pretty exciting thing watching how they operated this last game and both of them really playing great.”

If the Jets can run the ball, it will open up the play-action passing game for Geno Smith. He’s got some big-time weapons, led by premier receiver Garrett Wilson.

3. Jets Tight Ends, Led By a ‘Beast’

The Jets are loaded at tight end. So loaded that they played with five on the field for one snap against Tennessee. It’s the first time a team has lined up with five in at least 20 years, Reich said.

“I like it for those tight ends,” he said. “You got to have those little things in this league. This is a hard business. There’s a lot of ups and downs. If you don’t have some ways to have some fun, try to be creative like that and do fun things for the room and the unit, you can do that and still not compromise your principles. That’s just all we’re trying to do.”

With the Cardinals last season, Packers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannnon’s unit gave the third-most catches and the fourth-most touchdowns to tight ends. Led by T.J. Hockenson, the Vikings’ tight ends had six catches for 58 yards and one touchdown last week.

In his debut last week, Jets first-round pick Kenyon Sadiq caught three passes for 21 yards. Talk about a matchup problem: At 6-foot-3, he ran his 40 in 4.39 seconds and posted a 43.5-inch vertical.

Packers safety Evan Williams knows him well. They were teammates together at Oregon in 2023, when Williams was a transfer player from Fresno State and Sadiq was a freshman.

“He’s a beast, man,” Williams recalled. “I was only there for a year but he was an incoming freshman and he was on the scout team. The first year I’m there, I’m going against him damn near every play. I’m like, ‘God, damn, this is what Power 5 ball is like? This is the scout-team tight end? This guy’s real.’

“He’s got real speed. He’s grown tremendously since that first year, too. He’s just a physical specimen, for real. What did he run? 4.3 and is 240, 6-3, jumping out of the gym. He’s a guy that’s just dynamic, has YAC ability, as well. It’s been cool to see him progress but, at the same time, it’s time to put the clamps on him. Got to be ready for whatever they decide to do with him. He’s a great talent.”

The vultures appear to be circling the Packers after their latest epic collapse.

Not so fast. ⬇️https://t.co/68pyQ7oQmZ

— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) September 19, 2026

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