GREEN BAY – Any Thursday game in the NFL schedule creates an inflection point.
It means a short week, and two games in a span of five days – five jam-packed days that can turn any team very quickly into a hot or cold one.
The Packers have two Thursday games on their 2025 schedule, meaning a pair of two-games-in-five-days stretches, and they couldn't be more important for Green Bay's fortunes.
The first gauntlet is right off the bat, with the Packers opening at home for the first time in Matt LaFleur's tenure as head coach, with a Thursday home game in Week 2.
More importantly, it starts against the two-time defending NFC North champion Lions, followed four days later by a visit from Washington, which reached the conference title game last January.
That's quite the 1-2 punch to start the year. The advantage is the Packers get both matchups at home.
But in a year with only eight home contests, that means nine of the remaining 15 games will be away from Lambeau Field, including four of the ensuing five, with Green Bay's Week 5 bye mixed in.
There's no such thing as Weeks 1-2 being make-or-break over the long grind of an NFL season. But with those first two opponents being bona fide Super Bowl contenders, and with just one more home game between Sept. 11 and the end of October, it would certainly behoove the Packers to start fast and avoid climbing uphill in the early going.
The other critical five-day stretch comes at the end of November, with a visit to Lambeau from the Vikings in Week 12 (Nov. 23) followed immediately by a Thanksgiving trip to Detroit.
The importance of this condensed back-to-back is even more obvious and heightened, with both contests against division rivals who finished ahead of the Packers in the NFC North last year – and who accounted for four of Green Bay's six regular-season losses.
It was a rough go for the Packers against the Vikings and Lions in 2024, which made for a poor mark in the division overall. In Week 18, after losing to the Bears for the first time in LaFleur's tenure, the Packers finished 1-5 in the NFC North, their worst division record since 2005.
Take a look at the Green Bay Packers matchups during the 2025 NFL season.
The big, late November five-day run that features those Minnesota and Detroit matchups begins the final stretch of the season that includes five of the Packers' division games over the last seven weeks.
After the Detroit contest on Thanksgiving, Green Bay will face Chicago twice in the next three weeks and then finish the regular season at Minnesota.
From another perspective, the Week 1 opener against Detroit at Lambeau is the Packers' only division game until Week 12. Then it's a flurry of NFC North contests that'll likely determine whether the Packers can return to the top of the division for the first time since 2021.
But two vital, compact stretches come before that stretch run. Lions and Commanders in five days in September, then Vikings and Lions in five days in November.
That's almost one-quarter of the full season – and half of the Packers' division games – taking place over just 10 days.
Those are significant challenges, as well as opportunities to generate major momentum at key junctures in the season.
