Packers haven’t paced themselves in overloaded NFC

The NFC is becoming comparable to the western conference in the NBA. Very few teams can be discounted as a threat to the teams at the very top. The Green Bay Packers, meanwhile, haven’t been able to keep themselves towards the top of the race.

The Packers simply have not shown the type of urgency that so many other teams in the NFC have in recent years. The Los Angeles Rams have built a skilled, diverse roster that the Packers will only have a chance to beat because of who they have quarterbacking them.

The Packers could also be upstaged by the defending-champion Eagles, who are not only returning several key starters from injury, but added several major pieces to an already elite roster. The New Orleans Saints have done a masterful job of adding talent that can both compete for a championship right now and keep them competitive once Drew Brees hangs them up.

It is pretty easy to discount the Falcons and the Panthers despite the fact that both teams have been to the Super Bowl under their current head coaches and both reached the playoffs a season ago. Then of course, the Packers are contending with possibly the most complete roster in the NFL, the Vikings.

The Vikings are superior to the Packers at almost every position on the team. Aaron Rodgers is obviously in a different league from Kirk Cousins, and David Bakhtiari takes the cake as the best offensive lineman in the whole NFC North. Most would argue that Jimmy Graham is a little bit better than Kyle Rudolph, but at this point in Graham’s career, it is hard to tell if he will start to decline as he enters his age 31 season.

The Vikings are better at every position defensively, and are more explosive at receiver and running back. The Packers are going to have themselves an extremely difficult time coming out on top of their own division, let alone the rest of the saturated NFC.

The other troubling aspect is that the entire conference doesn’t feature a single “gimme” game anymore. There are no easy As for the Packers to gobble up along the way. The Giants, who are at best hoping to qualify for a wild-card berth, have as much talent on the defensive side of the ball as anybody in the NFL and added one of the game’s most dynamic running backs in Saquon Barkley.

The Cowboys were a juggernaut with Ezekiel Elliott on the field. Back from last year’s dumpster fire of a season, Elliott and Prescott should be back to the form they were in in their rookie seasons. The 49ers have yet to even lose a game with Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback, and the Seahawks, while lacking talent around Russell Wilson, have survived long enough in the NFC without a whole lot to surround Wilson with already.

Only the Buccaneers, Cardinals and Redskins truly qualify as teams that the Packers don’t have to pay too much attention to this coming year. It is worth remembering the Packers have one of the worst rosters in the NFL that is being lifted up by the best to ever play quarterback.

While the free agent signings of Jimmy Graham, Muhammad Wilkerson, Marcedes Lewis, Byron Bell and Tramon Williams were clearly an effort by Brian Gutekunst to begin to build back up a roster that is starving for high-end talent, the Packers still have far too many weaknesses to survive in the NFC playoffs.

The ground game currently has just two active running backs ready to go for Week 1 against the Chicago Bears, who just added Khalil Mack to an already stingy defense. The backups to an injury-prone offensive line don’t even look capable of playing in the CFL. While the Packers kept a bizarre eight — yes, eight receivers, they are not a unit capable of picking up Aaron Rodgers should he have an off day.

Don’t forget that the Packers kept eight receivers on the team despite likely using Jimmy Graham almost exclusively as a receiver. That is essentially nine receivers for an offense with two running backs.

While former defensive coordinator Dom Capers may be gone, the unit as a whole is still largely the same. The Packers still don’t seem to have the slightest clue what to do with Clay Matthews despite knowing what a talented pass rusher he has been over the years, and are again trotting out inexperienced, unproven defensive backs.

All in all, the Packers will once again rely on the magic of Aaron Rodgers to get them back to the playoffs this year. Whether they can finally get back to another Super Bowl is a different story.