Despite three straight seasons as the No. 7 seed, Jordan Love and the Packers remain contenders in the NFC North. Jamie Schwaberow / Getty ImagesSept. 3, 2026 Updated “The Athletic Football Show” is previewing all 32 teams leading up to the start of the 2026 NFL season. Below are select quotes from the show’s preview of the Green Bay Packers. The quotes are edited for clarity. You can watch the whole preview on YouTube and in the embedded video below or listen to the full NFC North preview wherever you get your podcasts.Derrik Klassen on what about the Packers most excites him: I just love watching this quarterback play football, man. It’s really as simple as that. We know. It’s both in terms of how it looks and what he’s trying to accomplish. I do think that the elasticity, the calmness with which he maneuvers and bounces around the pocket, are unique in the NFL right now. Some of the backfoot stuff, when he first started doing it when he was a starter, we were like, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing that?” And now it’s, he’s the only guy who can get away with it at that rate, and it looks incredible. And so I just think that he’s incredibly aesthetically pleasing to watch for those reasons.Dave Helman on what he’s watching the first month of the season: I want to see how the defense responds to nine months of being told they’re not (good) without Micah Parsons. If you’re looking for reasons not to be optimistic about the Packers, defensively, there’s not a lot worth getting excited about with Parsons sidelined. If you want to get excited about Devonte Wyatt also coming back from injury, I think that’s a valid point, but Parsons is the bread and butter for this defense, and they were not as good statistically as you might guess when he was out there.Robert Mays on what’s keeping him up at night: What’s keeping me up at night is after the playoff run in 2023, it felt like this team was playing with house money. They were ahead of schedule, they were so young. Who were we also saying that about after that season? The Los Angeles Rams. Both teams overachieved and were better than we expected. Where are the Rams and Packers in comparison to each other right now? The Rams are Super Bowl favorites with the best roster in the league. This Packers team feels more fragile than it has at any point in the last three years. Even if you painted the optimistic picture of why they can still be good, more stuff has to go right. They are thinner at a lot of these positions. If this doesn’t work out, then they’re in trouble.Subscribe to “The Athletic Football Show” on YouTube.