Five Questions Packers Must Answer in Training Camp

On the surface, the Green Bay Packers improved in Year 2 with Jordan Love as their starting quarterback. Expectations, however, are fickle, and the Packers had plenty of them coming into 2024.

Grading on that scale, they are coming off a disappointing season. The Packers talked – loudly – about the Super Bowl. Instead, they never sniffed it. They never looked like a full-fledged contender. Anytime they played a real contender, they lost. And, typically, in the same fashion – falling behind early before mounting a comeback, only to fall short and wonder about what could have been.

Can the Packers get over that hump and beat a really good team? If they’re going to get back to the Super Bowl, that is one of the questions they’re going to have to answer. Here are five more that will determine whether a good team can become great.

No. 1: Who Is Great?

Following the Packers’ 31-25 triumph over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV, Greg Jennings said it was a great day to be great. Jennings was on that day. He scored two touchdowns and had a clutch 31-yard reception that helped the Packers drain the majority of the clock on their final drive of the game.

The 2025 Packers have a lot of good players, resulting in them being a good team. The problem? Great players win championships.

Green Bay’s last title team had Aaron Rodgers reach his peak form in the postseason. He was surrounded by a great receiver in Jennings, two Defensive Player of the Year candidates in Clay Matthews and Charles Woodson, along with breakout seasons from B.J. Raji and Nick Collins.

Who are those players on this year’s Packers?

The hope last season was that Jordan Love would build off the momentum that he finished the 2023 season with, when he cemented himself as the Packers’ quarterback of the present and future. Unfortunately, injuries and bouts with inconsistency both from himself and the players around him ruined some of the year.

Josh Jacobs had a great year. Can he repeat that? Will anyone emerge from a young and talented group of pass-catchers?

The offensive line was once anchored by David Bakhtiari, who was on a Hall of Famer trajectory before a knee injury ruined his career. Is there a great player in that group? Maybe Zach Tom, but even he struggled in some of the team’s biggest games a year ago.

On defense, Xavier McKinney earned first-team All-Pro honors in his first year with the team. The other Packers defender who had been great was Jaire Alexander, but he was released last month.

There are some players who could make a leap in their second year of Jeff Hafley’s defense. If they don’t, the Packers are likely destined for another solid season but one that falls short of championship glory.

No. 2: Who Will Win on Defensive Line?

If I had told you after last summer that the defensive line was going to be a question mark going into the 2025 season, you would have been asking what in the world happened?

Green Bay’s defensive line routinely wrecked practices with themselves and a joint practice against the Ravens. When the regular season started, however, they stopped living in their opponent’s backfield.

There were occasions. They had an eight-sack outburst against the Tennessee Titans. They beat up Geno Smith in a December game in Seattle.

Ultimately, they were not nearly consistent enough. While a Pro Bowler, Rashan Gary did not rediscover the form that earned him a contract extension in 2023. Lukas Van Ness did not take the leap the team was expecting. Preston Smith was traded. Kenny Clark had the worst season of his career. Devonte Wyatt battled through injuries.

You get the point.

The coaches and general manager Brian Gutekunst have said they did not get what they were hoping for from their defensive front. Despite that, they did not make any big investments this offseason. No free agent money was spent on the defensive line. They used two midround picks, but who knows how much Barryn Sorrell and Collin Oliver will play.

The burden is going to be on the same group that was a disappointment a season ago. Whether or not they play better could play a big role in how Green Bay’s season plays out.

No. 3: Can Jekyll-Hyde Passing Game Play Consistently?

The passing game was supposed to be what took the Packers to the next level in 2024.

No, they did not have a true top receiver like Davante Adams, but they didn’t care. All four of their young receivers had big moments in 2023, leading to the belief that a different player could be their leading receiver on any given week.

Key to it all, Jordan Love finished the season on a tear, blowing through the league, including a 48-point outburst against the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC playoffs.

With a contract extension and the security it provided, Love looked primed to challenge for league MVP honors. Instead, a knee injury in Brazil resulted in Love missing two games and impacting his game for much of the season.

“There might be some things here and there that might’ve been affected by the injury, but I’m never going to put anything on an injury,” Love said at the start of OTAs.

It wasn’t just the injury. Love struggled early in the season with turnovers. Even with the missed games and a run-heavy attack, he was near the top of the league in interceptions when the Packers hit their bye in November.

The overcorrection came after the bye. Love looked tentative to push the ball down the field at times. He went from Favre-esque gunslinger to checkdown merchant.

Maybe that was because when he did throw the ball down the field, his receivers did not catch it.

After strong rookie seasons, Dontayvion Wicks and Jayden Reed had 17 drops between them. Romeo Doubs was in and out of the lineup with concussion injuries and a suspension. Christian Watson missed a late-season game with a knee injury, then suffered a torn ACL in his return. The offense sputtered without him.

By the end of the season, the passing attack was putrid. The crash culminated in a 10-point dud in the playoff loss at the Eagles.

Moving forward to this season, everyone is back and there were two big additions. Matthew Golden was the team’s first first-round pick at the position since Javon Walker in 2002. He should at minimum provide a speed threat as a rookie. Savion Williams gives them a chance at some easy offense with his ability as a runner in the open field.

Watson was sprinting during the team’s mandatory minicamp and running some routes on his own during the break. He should be back by the middle of the season.

Along with the depth at receiver, Tucker Kraft and Luke Musgrave are threats at tight end. Kraft is a wrecking ball after the catch and Musgrave provides speed in the middle of the field.

Did they get better? Did they figure out how to navigate the offense with so many mouths to feed? Will there be infighting at receiver, with six players set to see their contracts expire after the 2025 or 2026 seasons?

All of those are questions that need to be answered.

Jacobs and the run game are great, but NFL games are played primarily through the air. Green Bay’s passing game needs to be better, and that starts with its $55 million quarterback.

No. 4: Is New Offensive Line an Improved Offensive Line?

Green Bay’s first addition of the offseason was its biggest.

Literally.

Aaron Banks is a mountain of a man, standing in at 6-foot-5 and 324 pounds. The Packers signed him to a four-year, $77 million contract to play left guard. Elgton Jenkins, a two-time Pro Bowler at left guard, will move to center. Given a contract extension, Zach Tom will be the right tackle.

Two spots are up for grabs.

At left tackle, Rasheed Walker has been solid in two years since taking over for David Bakhtiari, but his job is not safe. Jordan Morgan, last year’s first-round pick, will compete for the starting job.

At right guard, Sean Rhyan started all 17 games last season, but Morgan will battle for that job, as well. So could Anthony Belton, this year’s second-round pick.

While the Packers got bigger on the offensive line, did they get better?

We won’t have answers to that question until the team puts pads on at training camp or lines up against the Lions in their first game of the season. This game still starts up front. The Packers thought they needed to be better on the offensive line.

They’ve made the investment, now they need to be right.

No. 5: Can Cornerbacks Stop Top Quarterbacks, Receivers?

We saved the biggest concern for last.

Depending on who you ask.

In the wake of releasing Jaire Alexander, general manager Brian Gutekunst did not sound worried. He talked about the experience of his top three cornerbacks. He’s right. Keisean Nixon, Carrington Valentine and free agent addition Nate Hobbs have combined for 91 starts.

None of them, however, have been asked to be their team’s best cornerback for a full season, which is what someone is going to be asked to be at some point this year.

Safety Javon Bullard has some positional versatility after serving as the team’s slot when Nixon moved to the boundary a season ago. Apart from those four, there’s not much experience in the cornerback room. In fact, there’s practically zero experience.

Despite the perceived need, Gutekunst’s only addition at cornerback in the draft came in the seventh round. That room got thinner with the release of Alexander before the team’s mandatory minicamp in June.

Kamal Hadden and Kalen King, two late-round picks who spent last season on the practice squad, are a rolled ankle away from being asked to play significant snaps. King missed minicamp with a forearm injury, and relying on a seventh-round pick to make a second-year jump seems like a risky proposition.

Behind them is the draft pick, Micah Robinson, and Gregory Junior, a former sixth-round pick who didn’t play any regular-season snaps last season.

Of course, the story of minicamp was Bo Melton trying to channel his inner Travis Hunter by playing on both sides of the ball.

If Gutekunst is comfortable with the group he has, he might be the only one.