# Green Bay Packers 2026 Outlook: Everyone Loves the Skill Positions, Nobody Has Been Right About the Division

*Published 2026-09-03 — MissedTakes*

The [Green Bay Packers](/nfl/teams/packers) come out of a 9-7-1 season that ended in the playoffs, their third straight postseason trip after 11-6 in 2024 and 9-8 in 2023. Brian Gutekunst is still the GM, Matt LaFleur is still the coach, and the last title on file is 2010.

The punditry is distributed exactly the way you'd guess. The site holds 125 Packers takes about wide receivers and 10 about guards.

![Where Packers punditry actually goes](/posts/visuals/bc3b2838-4e56-4392-9157-15d39cf4b425.png)

That shape governs everything below. Some of these units have dozens of checkable claims; some have a roster-projection listing and nothing else. We say so where that's the case.

## Quarterbacks

There is no competition, and nobody pretends otherwise. Bill Huber (no pundit page on the site) wrote on August 15 that "Nobody is challenging Jordan Love or Xavier McKinney," and on the backup job: "No, Kyle McCord is not going to unseat Tyrod Taylor as the backup." [Jacob Westendorf](/pundits/jacob-westendorf)'s [final 53-man projection](/opinions/60a297eb-a1a6-4929-a589-40cb7119463c) puts it plainly — "Jordan Love is the starter and Tyrod Taylor is the backup" — with two quarterbacks on the roster. Huber's earlier prediction was that Green Bay carries three between the 53 and the practice squad, with McCord as the third.

The interesting quarterback disagreement is about how good Love is. [Peter Bukowski](/pundits/peter-bukowski) calls him a top-eight-to-top-10 quarterback and derives the team's floor from it. Fantasy analysts split: [Derek Brown](/pundits/derek-brown) says "Love's QB2 production is priced into his ADP; his upside as a QB1 is not," while [Pat Fitzmaurice](/pundits/pat-fitzmaurice) allows that "Love might be a top-10 quarterback in reality" but wants him treated as "a high-end to midrange QB2 in 2026 fantasy drafts." A FantasyPros projection piece has him QB20 in consensus and QB22 by projection. For reference, on the 2025 MVP ballot the site tracked, Love drew 4 of 100 picks; Matthew Stafford won.

Worth knowing before you weight any of this: Green Bay depth-chart calls grade at 85.3 average accuracy across 13 graded takes — but a **skill delta of −5.03**, meaning the field is right and no better than the naive assumption. Calling Love the starter is not a prediction. Brown's sleeper calls sit at 52.25 accuracy over 41 graded; his positional-finish calls, the "he'll be a QB1" genre, sit at 12.85.

## The receiver room

The biggest pile of takes on the roster, and a clean consensus: Christian Watson is the No. 1. Brown — "Christian Watson got the bag this offseason and should be considered the clear WR1" — [Andrew Erickson](/pundits/andrew-erickson) ("Green Bay enters 2026 with a surplus of vacated targets... that Watson is well-positioned to absorb"), Fitzmaurice ("Watson is poised to smash in 2026 if he can stay healthy") and FantasyPros all land in the same place.

Matthew Golden is the second-year breakout everyone has co-signed: Fitzmaurice, Erickson, [Rob Rang](/pundits/rob-rang), [Bucky Brooks](/pundits/bucky-brooks) and [Rich Hribar](/pundits/rich-hribar), plus Bukowski projecting "between forty five and sixty catches and 800 yards and six touchdowns." The dissent is quiet but specific: [Nathan Jahnke](/pundits/nathan-jahnke) has Golden "likely fourth in the target order behind Watson, Reed and tight end Tucker Kraft."

Jahnke's caution has the better paper trail. Golden's 9 graded takes average 41.7 accuracy with a −75.26 skill delta. Last preseason, [Jourdan Rodrigue](/pundits/jourdan-rodrigue) ("I think he's going to be the volume, number one receiver on this team") and [Jake Ciely](/pundits/jake-ciely) both put him first in the pecking order; he finished fourth by receptions — 75 accuracy, −16.67 skill each. [Joe Pisapia](/pundits/joe-pisapia)'s buy-low sleeper call graded 0: Golden needed to reach WR36 and finished WR92. Packers receiver takes as a group: 19 graded, 51.3 accuracy, −19.39 skill.

## The running backs

The room reordered itself in late August. Josh Jacobs is on the commissioner-exempt list, and the takes flipped inside a week. Westendorf's August 29 projection still read "Jacobs is the bell cow. Lloyd is the primary backup." By September 1–2, Brown had "MarShawn Lloyd looks primed to enter the NFL season as the Packers' workhorse back," FantasyPros had Lloyd "the frontrunner for the job, not a guaranteed bellcow," and Fitzmaurice wrote that "If you have a fantasy draft this week, Lloyd should be a top-100 pick."

Jacobs himself has become a fade. Brown: "he is firmly off my draft board." [Simon Hunter](/pundits/simon-hunter): "He's undraftable. It doesn't even matter if it's the 10th round." Erickson lists him as a bust. On bust calls specifically, Brown's record is the strongest thing in this post — 77.08 accuracy and a +108.33 MissedTakes Score over 16 graded — while Fitzmaurice's bust calls run 22.86 accuracy and −108.57. Green Bay running back takes overall: 78 filed, only 6 graded (49.4 accuracy, +21.24 skill), so the sample is thin.

## The tight ends

Tucker Kraft is the most confidently hyped Packer on the site and the worst-graded subject in the file. [Trevor Sikkema](/pundits/trevor-sikkema) called him "a league winner." Jahnke's PFF piece gave him "a realistic path to finishing as a top-three fantasy tight end in 2026." Lawrence Iacona has him with "top-five tight end potential." A CBS Sports bold-prediction piece says "he will explode this season and lead all tight ends in receiving yards," and Kraft tied Colston Loveland with three votes on CBS's 13-writer All-Breakout panel.

Then the ledger: Kraft's 7 graded takes average **1.2 accuracy** with a −111.9 skill delta, and Packers tight end takes as a unit run 11.1 accuracy across 9 graded, −109.26 skill. Injury is the stated caveat in most of this year's calls — Fitzmaurice tells readers to "monitor the news on Kraft's recovery" — but the pattern the data shows is pundits pricing him as a breakout and getting nothing back for it. Behind him, Westendorf and Huber both project Jonnu Smith and Josh Whyle on the roster, with Luke Musgrave on PUP.

## The offensive line

Real punditry, almost none of it graded. The Week 1 five is close to unanimous: Jordan Morgan at left tackle (Huber, Ryan Conway, Westendorf, Bukowski, [Jason Hirschhorn](/pundits/jason-hirschhorn-2)), Aaron Banks at left guard, Sean Rhyan at center, Jacob Monk at right guard and Zach Bako-Bewele at right tackle. Huber's line on the guard battle is blunt: Monk "replaced Belton at right guard and Belton is the backup at right tackle, and there appears to be no turning back."

One rookie call already looks off. [Brandon Sneide](/pundits/brandon-sneide) said in April he "would not be shocked if Burton is your center" by the end of camp; Huber's August read is that "If Green Bay's No. 1 line is healthy, Burton is not going to start." Graded history is scant and unflattering — tackle takes: 5 graded, 25.9 accuracy; guards: 3 graded, 38.5.

## The defensive line

Mostly Huber, and mostly camp reporting shaped into predictions: Barryn Sorrell has the starting edge job left by Micah Parsons ("The race to replace Micah Parsons in the starting lineup... hasn't been a race at all"), Brenton Cox is "the best edge pass rusher on the roster," Jonathan Ford "has had a terrific training camp to seize the job at nose tackle," and Nazir Stackhouse has gone "from potentially on the roster bubble to potentially starting."

Parsons is the sport's live variable and the site's cautionary tale. PFF's Gordon McGuinness writes that his late-season ACL injury means "he will not be ready for Week 1" and has him back by mid-October. Parsons' 4 graded takes average 14.1 accuracy: [Jamie Erdahl](/pundits/jamie-erdahl)'s two Defensive Player of the Year picks graded 0 (Myles Garrett won), an All-Pro first-team call graded 0, and the one hit was [Rich Eisen](/pundits/rich-eisen) predicting 16 sacks against an actual 12.5 — 56.25 accuracy, +68.67 skill.

## The secondary

Rookie corner Brandon Cisse is the story, and pundits got there early. Sneide in April: "I think he's immediately your cornerback number two." Hirschhorn: "you can see a scenario that by the end of the season, he's one of their starters." Huber tracked the takeover through camp — "second-round pick Brandon Cisse moved in with the No. 1 defense. At this point, he might never move out" — and by August 19 had him "destined to be one of Green Bay's starting cornerbacks" in Week 1 at Minnesota. Cornerback takes: 40 filed, 15 graded, 51.3 accuracy, +31.09 skill, though most of the graded ones are mock-draft picks rather than evaluations.

The safeties get one honest sentence: five takes on file, none graded. Four are roster listings; the fifth is Sneide saying Green Bay has the NFL's best safety room and that Xavier McKinney is "probably" a third-time All-Pro.

## Special teams

Five takes, all about rookie kicker Trey Smack, none graded. Bukowski's April logic — "Did the Packers trade two picks for a kicker that they don't see as someone who has a pathway to starting on their team? No" — has held; CBS's Carter Bahns graded the "Packers solved their kicking woes" claim a "Reality," citing Smack as a preseason standout, and Andrew Swanson thinks "He could be the next young kicker who becomes fantasy relevant." Punter Daniel Whelan appears only in roster projections. There are no return-game takes in the file.

## The rookie class

Ground truth: CB Brandon Cisse (52), DT Chris McClellan (77), DE Dani Dennis-Sutton (120), C Jager Burton (153), CB Domani Jackson (201), K Trey Smack (216).

Predictions about them, before they existed as Packers, went about how mock drafts go. Green Bay mock-draft calls average 42.6 accuracy over 41 graded (+33.17 skill, since the baseline is a shuffled mock). Bukowski's best 2026 Green Bay call was cornerback Daylen Everette at 84 — actual pick 85, 95.76 accuracy. Hirschhorn and Westendorf agreed on Domonique Orange at 84 (actual 82, 91.7) but also on Chris Johnson at 52, who went 27th (33.86). [Daniel Jeremiah](/pundits/daniel-jeremiah) had edge R. Mason Thomas at 52; he went undrafted, scoring 0.

Post-draft, Huber projected McClellan as "a big favorite to be a starter for Week 1" and Burton as a possible "longtime starter, perhaps in the mold of Corey Linsley," while Westendorf has Dennis-Sutton ahead of Collin Oliver in the No. 2 edge tandem.

## The overall outlook

There is no 2026 win-total consensus record yet — the season hasn't produced anything to grade — but the calls are already spread across four wins.

![2026 Packers record predictions](/posts/visuals/1cc92d1a-2980-4b6f-b1a7-fe2b47cf2485.png)

[Brandon Sneide](/pundits/brandon-sneide) has them at 12-5. Hirschhorn has 10-7 with Green Bay first in the North. Westendorf and Moe Moton both say 9-8. Gilberto Manzano has them last in the division at 8-9. Bukowski's framing: if Love is a top-eight quarterback, "their floor is, like, nine or 10 wins if the defense is not" a disaster. On the betting side, [Colin Cowherd](/pundits/colin-cowherd) took the under 9.5 ("eight feels about where they land") and [Jason McIntyre](/pundits/jason-mcintyre) took the over the same day; Adam Chernoff also bet over 9.5, and back in March both Hunter and [Chad Millman](/pundits/chad-millman) took over 10.5.

Division and conference is where this team has been a graveyard for takes.

![Team-level Packers calls, graded](/posts/visuals/d793bd2e-95fe-48a6-97c6-345bb8904db3.png)

Thirteen graded division-winner calls naming Green Bay average **7.7 accuracy** — the only hit in the set is The Draft Network's 2020 prediction. All 10 graded conference-champion calls on the Packers scored 0, including [Peter Schrager](/pundits/peter-schrager)'s twice-doubled-down 2024 Super Bowl pick and Eisen's 2025 "prophecy." Playoff picks grade 100 across 25 takes, but with an average skill delta of 8: saying the Packers make the playoffs is what the naive baseline says too. Win totals grade 63.3 with a −42.68 skill delta, dragged by Eisen's "the Packers look like a 14 or 13 win team" (20 accuracy, −126.1 skill against an actual nine wins). [Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright) said nine and scored 100.

The 2026 field has already started hedging. Eisen, who had Green Bay winning the North in May, went on September 2 to picking Detroit and the Packers last in the division while insisting everyone finishes above .500. [Chris Brockman](/pundits/chris-brockman) has Chicago first, Detroit second, Green Bay third and "the top three all make the playoffs." [JP Acosta](/pundits/jp-acosta) has them in the field; McIntyre likes them "as a wildcard team."

If you're reading the file rather than the volume: the safe takes here (Love starts, Watson is the No. 1, Green Bay makes the playoffs) grade well and earn no credit, and the loud ones — Kraft as a top-three tight end, Green Bay as an NFC champion — are precisely where this team has cost pundits the most.