MINNEAPOLIS – NFL seasons are always full of adversity, and the Packers got about a month's worth just in the opening fourth quarter of 2026.
Sunday's 39-22 defeat to the Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium snowballed out of control, and it left the Packers with more than just a Week 1 loss to deal with as a new season got underway.
"You look at that fourth quarter, they got the momentum, and they started rolling, and that's where we kind of fell apart," QB Jordan Love said.
There's no point in recapping all the frustrating details here. Decisions, penalties, turnovers, protection issues. They're all there for the parsing.
But what makes Love's comment hard to hear is obvious.
The Packers' season ended sooner than it should've last year because of late-game collapses, so they spent all offseason talking about finishing games better and developing the right mentality in those crunch-time moments.
Only what happened Sunday was, comparatively speaking, almost more difficult to watch than either of the losses at Chicago late last season. As the Vikings scored 29 straight points, the Packers never gave themselves a chance to right the ship and win the game.
"You've got to answer" was a line, or some version of it, that was repeated by Head Coach LaFleur and his players postgame. The Packers didn't despite numerous opportunities.
The only silver lining is this meltdown didn't cost Green Bay an NFC North title or a playoff victory. That's not much consolation, however true.
But no matter what is said or the reasons for the failures, an early-season narrative will form that this is the same team as last year. That all the offseason talk about finishing games rings hollow.
There's really no arguing it until the Packers change the pattern themselves.
"We talk about it all the time," Love said. "That's the NFL. All these games find ways to be close at the end. We've got to find ways to be at our best. We've talked about it time and time again, and I think we'll keep talking about it until we figure it out and do something about it."
It's hard to imagine a Week 1 result testing a team's resolve more than this, given how last season concluded.
Not only do the Packers need to respond and lean on their leadership, both in the locker room and on the sideline, to put this behind them. But they also have to, psychologically, not get caught in the trap of "here we go again" as soon as something in the next fourth quarter goes wrong.
Because something will. It's not going to go perfectly smoothly. It never does. As Love said, "That's the NFL." Perhaps as soon as next week, the Packers will have another lead in the fourth quarter, and their opponent will start to rally.
Will they be able to stop a small snowball from growing and rolling downhill and burying them? Will they have an answer, something that turns the momentum and prevents a game that's already gone from sideways to the wrong way from never swinging back in their favor again?
There's nothing else to say about it. The offseason was full of those words. They have to do it, and it's up to them.
The beauty of this league is it won't be long before another opportunity presents itself. That's a given. As awful as Sunday's loss was, this can be overcome because there's time to do so, unlike last year when the clock on the season was ticking away.
"We'll be better," Love said. "We'll get back to work. It's Week 1. We've got a long journey ahead of us."
