Packers schedule release 2019: Importance of winning early

Take a look at the 2019 regular season schedule and one thing quickly becomes clear: the Green Bay Packers need to win often early in the year.

Five of the Green Bay Packers‘ first seven games take place at Lambeau Field.

On one hand, this can be seen as a positive. With a new head coach, this gives the Packers home-field advantage for much of the early part of the season, which in theory makes it easier for them to put up victories and build a winning record before the bye week.

However, it also comes with added pressure. Because with so many home games early, the Packers better win a lot. They can’t afford to make a slow start.

This means Matt LaFleur’s team needs to be ready to go right away. A few weeks to get adjusted in a new scheme? Forget that — winning is what matters.

The two road games in the opening seven weeks are as difficult as they come, starting at Chicago in Week 1 then at Dallas in Week 5. The home opponents? Minnesota, Denver, Philadelphia, Detroit and Oakland. On paper, that’s hardly the scariest of schedules. Take it with a grain of salt, but these five teams combined for a 33-46-1 record in 2018, not that last season’s performance means a whole lot.

The Packers can’t afford to make a slow start, increasing the pressure to pick up multiple road wins to have a chance of reaching the postseason. Winning away from home is difficult in the NFL as the Packers showed last year by going an awful 1-7 on their travels.

The schedule doesn’t do them many favors, either, with games against the Chiefs and Chargers in consecutive weeks, and divisional showdowns at the Vikings and Lions to close out the season.

Let’s say the Packers make a fast start and win all five early games at Lambeau Field. They’d then enter that daunting two-game stretch at Kansas City and Los Angeles no worse than 5-2. Beat Carolina in Week 10 and it’s possible Green Bay enters its ideal Week 11 bye with around six wins, setting them up for a playoff push in the final six weeks of the season.

But a slow start would put the Packers behind the eight ball ahead of a particularly challenging middle part of the schedule. That’s what cost them last year.

It’ll be important to make a fast start in 2019.