You\u2019re about to witness some of the rarest Packers football there is.<\/p>\n
In the glorious century since Curly Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun brought the Packers into existence, the Packers have played just 32 Saturday games.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s fourth most among days of the week. Sundays, obviously, are the most common games for Packers football. Counting playoff games, the Packers have played 1,339 games on Sundays. Next most is Mondays, where the Packers have played 78 games. Thursdays are the next most common gameday with 61 Packers appearances, then Saturday with the aforementioned 32.<\/p>\n
And since you\u2019re wondering, the Packers have played four games on Fridays (most recently in 2004<\/a>), and one single, solitary game on a Wednesday<\/a>. There has never been a Packers\u2019 regular season or playoff game on a Tuesday. Sounds like a growth opportunity for the NFL (please no).<\/p>\n But we\u2019re here for Saturday football. Here\u2019s a brief history of the Packers\u2019 fourth-most-common gameday.<\/p>\n The Packers most recently played a Saturday game in 2021, hanging on to beat the Cleveland Browns 24-22 on Christmas Day thanks in large part to Baker Mayfield\u2019s four interceptions. Rasul Douglas put the final nail in the coffin, picking Mayfield off at midfield with under a minute to go.<\/p>\n The Packers played their first Saturday game almost exactly 100 years ago. On November 28, 1925, the Packers fell to the now defunct Frankford Yellow Jackets in Philadelphia by a score of 13-7. Frankford would win the NFL title in the 1926 season, but would be out of business by the early 1930s.<\/p>\n That was the only time the Packers ever played the Yellow Jackets on a Saturday, and they\u2019ve only ever played the Bears once on a Saturday, too. That game happened back in 1964. On a chilly December day at Wrigley Field, the Packers throttled the Bears 17-3 thanks to a characteristically hard-charging day from Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung, who combined for 130 yards and two touchdowns on 31 carries.<\/p>\n Of course, a good number of Saturday games have come in the playoffs, including the Packers\u2019 biggest Saturday win.<\/p>\n The biggest win came in 1982 (the game technically took place in 1983, but it was part of the 1982 season), and also happened to be the Packers\u2019 only playoff win under Bart Starr. That it came in a strike-shortened year where the Packers barely squeaked into the playoffs with a 5-3-1 record shouldn\u2019t take away from the fact that they put a beating on the Cardinals that day. Lynn Dickey went a sparkling 17 of 23 passing for 260 yards and four touchdown in a rout that wasn\u2019t even as close as the 41-16 final score would lead you to believe.<\/p>\n The Packers\u2019 worst loss didn\u2019t come in the playoffs, but it did put them out of their misery. Sort of. The Packers capped off their 1986 season by running into the buzzsaw that was the \u201886 Giants. New York was battling the Chicago Bears for seeding (both teams finished the season at 14-2) and wanted to leave nothing to chance in the final week of their season, and let the Packers have it. The Giants built a 21-0 lead thanks in part to a blocked punt (the Packers\u2019 special teams curse is eternal, apparently), but the Packers rallied to get the deficit down to seven in the second quarter, sending the game to halftime at 24-17. But the Giants poured it on in the second half en route to a 55-31 victory.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the 24-point loss that the Giants game was, but I think the Packers\u2019 16-0 loss to the Vikings two days before Christmas in 2017 merits a dishonorable mention. With Aaron Rodgers on the shelf with a broken collarbone, the Packers managed just 239 total yards in a truly piteous display. Brett Hundley went 17 of 40 passing for just 130 yards, throwing two interceptions in the process. It\u2019s the only time in Packers history has accumulated less than 150 yards on 40 or more passing attempts.<\/p>\n But lest that leave a bad taste in your mouth, let me remind you of one of the most glorious Saturday games in Packers history. The year was 2016, and the Packers were in the process of running the table. On Saturday, December 24, 2016, the Minnesota Vikings came to Lambeau Field desperately trying to keep their playoff hopes alive \u2014 and Aaron Rodgers said \u201cThat\u2019s not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodgers flayed the Minnesota secondary wide open, going 28 of 38 passing for 347 yards and four touchdowns, running in another score for good measure, as the Packers cruised to a 38-25 victory. They\u2019d finish off the running of the table a week later. The highlights are glorious<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019re about to witness some of the rarest Packers football there is. In the glorious century since Curly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[7,41,345,21403,2514,2513,6,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-614659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-bay-packers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-green-bay","10":"tag-green-bay-packers","11":"tag-green-bay-packers-history","12":"tag-greenbay","13":"tag-greenbaypackers","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-packers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115752225202623111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}