Could Packers Go 17-0? Here’s What Sportsbooks Say

GREEN BAY; Wis. – In NFL history, only five teams have gone undefeated and untied. That includes just two teams in the Super Bowl era, with the Miami Dolphins famously going 14-0 in 1972 and winning the Super Bowl and the New England Patriots infamously going 16-0 and losing the Super Bowl in 2007.

Could the Green Bay Packers, one of 10 undefeated teams through Week 2, finish the season undefeated?

The odds are against them, literally and figuratively.

At FanDuel Sportsbook, the Packers have the second-shortest odds to go 17-0. The Buffalo Bills have the shortest odds at +1700. The Packers are +5000, the Philadelphia Eagles are +8000 and the San Francisco 49ers are +14000. What does that mean? By implied probability, there’s a 1.96 percent chance that Green Bay will go 17-0.

Like Lloyd said in Dumb and Dumber, “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance.”

Since the dawn of the 17-game season in 2021, no team has gotten close to going 17-0. No team went 16-1 and only two went 15-2 – last year’s Lions and Chiefs. Only five teams finished 14-3, including last year’s Eagles, who won the Super Bowl.

Working in Green Bay’s favor is that it has earned wins in two of the toughest games on this schedule, with convincing victories over the Lions and Commanders. In both games, the Packers finished with 27 points and didn’t allow a touchdown in the first three quarters.  

Now, the Packers are hitting a bit of a softer stretch of games. On Sunday, they will play at the Cleveland Browns, who are 0-2 this season after going 3-14 last season. Next week, they will play at the Dallas Cowboys, who needed overtime to win at home against the Giants last week and are 30th in total defense and 29th in scoring defense. After their Week 5 bye, they will host the Cincinnati Bengals, who are 2-0 but will be without franchise quarterback Joe Burrow.

The following three games will be at the Arizona Cardinals, who are 2-0 but with wins against two of the worst teams in the league, at the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are a 60-yard field goal away from a 0-2 start and 29th in points allowed, and at home against the Carolina Panthers, who are 0-2 and on their way to a seventh consecutive season with 10-plus losses.

In an Any Given Sunday type of league, it’s certainly not a lock that the Packers will start 8-0. If they do, that would only heighten the Week 10 showdown against the Eagles, who are coming off a win at the Chiefs and whose next three games are home against the Los Angeles Rams, at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and home against the Denver Broncos.

The Eagles will be coming off their bye week when they play at Green Bay.

The Packers know they can’t be looking that far down the road.

“I’m not going to sit up here and say we the best team in the NFL,” safety Xavier McKinney said. “It’s just two games. We got a lot of football to play. I think the biggest thing about being 2-0, to be honest, you can’t really get complacent and you can’t feel like you won a Super Bowl because there’s a lot of more (teams) that start off 2-0 and later in the season they don’t be worth a sh**.

“So, that’s what we trying to eliminate, and in order for us to do that, we got to make sure we keep making sure that we know the level of importance of these days and keep working and keep trying to get better.”

The Packers’ over/under for wins at the start of the season was 9.5. With their hot start to the season, that’s up to 11.5.

At BetMGM, the Bills are the favorite to finish the season with the most wins, followed by Green Bay.

At DraftKings, the Packers are third in the Super Bowl odds. The Bills are the favorites at +425, followed by the Ravens at +475. Green Bay at +650 has the shortest odds among the NFC teams, followed by the Eagles at +750 and the Lions a distant fifth at +1400.

Green Bay is the favorite to earn homefield advantage in the NFC.

Turning the attention to what’s immediately ahead, the Packers are 8.5-point favorites for Sunday’s game at Cleveland.

“Those are two big wins, right? Those are some meaningful opponents, right?” safety Evan Williams said. “They came in here, put their best foot forward. It obviously means something we were able to essentially neutralize them at least from a defensive point of view and do what we did. Can never take that for granted.

“We celebrate all wins, for sure, but, at the same time, the moment that complacency settles in is the moment you’ve lost your next game. Yeah, we understand we’ve got to keep our foot on the pedal. Even if it was two 0-2 teams that we beat, it really doesn’t matter heading into this next week, we have to keep that same intensity, same foot on the pedal.”

Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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