# Green Bay Packers 2026: The Coverage Report — 25 playoff calls right, 25 contender calls wrong

*Published 2026-09-06 — MissedTakes*

One post per club, working through what the outlets we track said about each team and what the grades say back. A note up front that applies to all 32: this measures the sources in the MissedTakes database, not all of football media. Plenty gets said about the [Green Bay Packers](/nfl/teams/packers) that never passes through here.

## The coverage baseline: loud, but lightly graded

Across the whole database, our tracked sources have produced 19,341 team-tagged takes, an average of 604 per club. Green Bay has 695 — tenth-most in the league, comfortably above average. Volume is not the problem.

Grading is. Only 190 of those 695 takes carry a grade, which puts the Packers 19th of 32 in graded takes and below the 212-per-team average. League-wide, 35.1% of team-tagged takes have been graded; for Green Bay it's 27.3%.

![Green Bay's coverage, in context](/posts/visuals/aa94c02e-508c-4f6e-b2e3-857ab3a57dd1.png)

The gap is concentrated in three buckets where our sources talk constantly and resolution comes slowly or not at all:

| Claim type | Takes | Graded |
|---|---|---|
| Depth Chart Calls | 140 | 13 |
| Roster Spot Calls | 132 | 3 |
| Sleeper Calls | 125 | 11 |
| Mock Draft Picks | 48 | 41 |
| Game Outcome Picks | 43 | 37 |

So the honest summary of coverage: the Packers get talked about like a big-market team and graded like a mid-market one, because a lot of what gets said about them is roster and depth-chart projection that hasn't settled yet.

## The cutdown: 129 calls, no verdicts

The news hook of this series is the 53-man cutdown, and here the Packers file is thin in the way that matters. Of 132 roster-spot calls tagged to Green Bay, **three** are graded. The other 129 are pending — including the ones written for this cutdown.

[Jacob Westendorf](/pundits/jacob-westendorf) filed a [full 53-man projection on August 29](/opinions/60a297eb-a1a6-4929-a589-40cb7119463c), naming every position group: "Quarterback (2) On the 53: Jordan Love, Tyrod Taylor," six receivers including [Bo Melton](/nfl/players/bo-melton) and [Skyy Moore](/nfl/players/skyy-moore), six corners, nine offensive linemen. Nathan Jahnke's [PFF preseason recap](/opinions/47566b48-8024-4960-b25c-11c03fe43543) on August 30 flagged Melton too — "the only Packers skill-position player who appeared in this game and is likely to make the roster." Both are ungraded as of today.

The three roster-spot calls that *are* graded are all offseason "he'll be back" claims, and all three scored 100 for accuracy and 0 for skill, because the naive baseline — *he was on somebody's 53 last season* — said the same thing. [Gregg Rosenthal](/pundits/gregg-rosenthal) on [Rashan Gary](/nfl/players/rashan-gary): "Rashaun Gary back with the Packers." Westendorf on [Aaron Banks](/nfl/players/aaron-banks): "I don't think there's any question he's gonna be back." Rosenthal's [Jaire Alexander call](/opinions/a4aab509-2a3b-4c8a-b94d-29a1aee44baa) from the 2025 combine — "I don't think they're going to bring Alexander back" — was the only one that beat the coin flip conceptually, and it still graded at zero skill.

There are no graded cutdown surprises to report, in either direction. When the 129 land, we'll have something. Right now we don't, and padding it out would be inventing a story.

## The contender bet, graded

What the Packers file does have is a large, fully graded set of 2025 season-shape calls, and it went badly.

![The contender bet: accuracy by claim type](/posts/visuals/c699b51e-e88b-40cc-b7f0-3630d8de2b22.png)

Everyone said playoffs, and playoffs happened: 25 graded playoff-berth calls, 100% accuracy — but an average skill delta of just +8, because the naive baseline (they made it last year) said the same thing about a team that has now reached the postseason in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Green Bay finished 2025 at 9-7-1.

Everything above "playoff team" missed. Thirteen graded division-winner calls average 7.7% accuracy; the only hit in the entire file is a 2020 projection from The Draft Network, and every graded NFC North pick from 2025 — [Colin Cowherd](/pundits/colin-cowherd) ("Green Bay is probably gonna win that division"), [Chris Brockman](/pundits/chris-brockman) ("I just think it's their year"), John Middlekauff, Jonas Knox, [Brady Quinn](/pundits/brady-quinn) — graded zero. Ten conference-champion calls: zero. Two Super Bowl picks: zero. Ten award picks: zero, including Brockman's [claim that Jordan Love](/opinions/408da8cb-243c-45ad-9d31-0aec0314f6d6) "will finish no lower than second in MVP voting this season." Stafford won it.

Win totals were the one place the field landed near the truth. Five graded calls on 2025 Green Bay: [Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright) 9, Quinn 10, Mitchell Eisenstein 12, Danny Parkins 8, [Rich Eisen](/pundits/rich-eisen) 13, against an actual 9. Wright's "I just think they're gonna win nine games" scored 100 with +30 skill.

Pooled, the Packers file averages 46.6% accuracy and a skill delta of **-5.71** — third-lowest of 32 clubs, ahead of only Atlanta (-19.76) and Cincinnati (-6.29). On this team, our tracked sources have collectively done worse than a do-nothing baseline.

## Where the work was good

The draft. Forty-one graded mock-draft picks tagged to Green Bay average 42.6% accuracy but +33.17 skill, the best category in the file. [Peter Bukowski](/pundits/peter-bukowski) put [Daylen Everette](/nfl/players/daylen-everette) at 84 (he went 85) for 95.76% accuracy in his [final Packers mock](/opinions/638e5fe4-6042-45a9-a0c4-fe43807079b7); Westendorf and [Jason Hirschhorn](/pundits/jason-hirschhorn-2) both put [Domonique Orange](/nfl/players/domonique-orange) at 84 and he went 82, 91.7% each. Green Bay's actual haul: Brandon Cisse at 52, Chris McClellan at 77, Dani Dennis-Sutton at 120, Jager Burton at 153, Domani Jackson at 201, Trey Smack at 216.

Depth-chart calls also graded well on a small base — 13 graded, 85.3% accuracy — mostly a cluster of correct reads that [Christian Watson](/nfl/players/christian-watson) was Green Bay's top receiver, from [Marcas Grant](/pundits/marcas-grant), Westendorf and former Packers assistant Jeff "Coach Jags" Jagodzinski.

## Named records, with the sample sizes attached

Twelve pundits clear five graded Packers takes. Nobody clears fifteen, so treat all of this as directional rather than a ranking:

| Pundit | Graded | Accuracy | Skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rich Eisen | 14 | 44.2 | -17.72 |
| Peter Bukowski | 12 | 53.8 | +6.82 |
| Colin Cowherd | 10 | 59.5 | +22.62 |
| Gregg Rosenthal | 10 | 58.8 | -12.10 |
| Kyle Crabbs | 10 | 24.3 | +37.36 |
| Chris Brockman | 9 | 22.2 | 0.00 |
| Brady Quinn | 9 | 45.9 | -21.02 |
| Jacob Westendorf | 8 | 69.6 | +30.42 |
| Nick Wright | 8 | 62.5 | -35.13 |
| [Cynthia Frelund](/pundits/cynthia-frelund) | 7 | 50.0 | +15.86 |
| Jason Hirschhorn | 5 | 53.0 | +47.00 |
| Jonas Knox | 5 | 25.0 | -1.00 |

By outlet, the two biggest Packers files pull in opposite directions: *Locked On Packers* has 91 takes, 27 graded, 57.7% accuracy and +17.76 skill; *The Herd with Colin Cowherd* has 73 takes, 46 graded, 51.4% accuracy and -15.81 skill. The team-specific show is doing better than the national one, which is roughly what the per-type split predicts — draft and depth-chart work beats bracket work.

Scoring details are on the [methodology page](/methodology); the overall standings are on the [leaderboard](/leaderboard). We'll revisit Green Bay when the 129 roster calls settle.