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Home > The Simple Handicap > Green Bay Packers (75) - Team Preview
Podcast: The Simple Handicap
Episode:

Green Bay Packers (75) - Team Preview
Category: Sports & Recreation
Duration: 00:11:53
Publish Date: 2021-08-31 08:00:00
Description:

Previewing and ranking the Green Bay Packers tends to be a simple task. As long as they have Aaron Rodgers, this is a top ten team. The question each season is where they fit within those teams. After winning 13 games for the second consecutive seasons, it would be easy to stick them near the top, but there is reason to believe this team is not with the elites heading into 2021. Rodgers had a career year in 2020 (48 TD's, 71% completion rate, 121.5 passer rating) and the market never caught up to the Packers who went 11-7 ATS and covered the spread by an average of 3.4 points. There was a ton of under money expecting regression - but it never came. This season, much of that same sentiment returns. The quoted "F-You" tour Rodgers led throughout the league in 2020 is done, or at least exhausted into another season, and despite having the best QB, RB and WR in the league, things get considerably tougher in 2021. The Packers move from the 21st most difficult schedule of opposing defences in 2020 to the 3rd most difficult in 2021. For pass effeciency defense specifically, no team sees a more difficult increase this season vs last than the Packers. Key center Corey Linsley departed and David Bakhtiari's return is still in question after a season ending injury in 2020. The line up front looks different and much weaker than last season or prior. That is trouble looking at pass rushes of New Orleans, Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore, Minnesota x2 and Chicago x2 on the schedule. Even if Rodgers duplicates his career year, it is incredibly difficult to find 12 or 13 wins against these opponents.
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