Packers suffer utter heartbreak in 2024 NFL season simulation

The Green Bay Packers are familiar with playoff heartbreak.

Ten years on, many are still coming to terms with the team's impossible fourth-quarter collapse in the 2014 NFC title game. It's hard to rewatch the blocked-punt touchdown against the San Francisco 49ers, or Anders Carlson's missed field goal against the same opponents last January.

It's nothing new. Aaron Rodgers experienced his share of playoff heartbreak, and Jordan Love now has, too.

We don't need any more. Unfortunately, a simulation of the upcoming season has a promising year ending in the worst way possible.

ESPN simulation has Packers 2024 season ending in heartbreak

ESPN's Football Power Index has simulated the entire 2024 season. From a Packers' perspective, there are plenty of positives, but the ending would give fans a familiar feeling.

The simulation has Green Bay ending the regular season with an 11-6 record, good for second place in the NFC North and the No. 5 seed in the playoffs. The Detroit Lions retain their division title with a 13-4 record, and Caleb Williams leads the Chicago Bears to the playoffs with a 10-6 record.

That's where the good news ends.

The Packers enter the playoffs as a wild-card team but lose in the first round to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Wait, what? The Bucs?! We can't relive 2020 all over again.

Meanwhile, the seventh-seed Bears beat the Eagles, setting up an All-NFC North divisional-round battle with the Lions. Detroit wins, beats San Francisco in the NFC title game, and then wins the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs.

No, just no. Start the simulation again. It's all wrong.

The Packers going one-and-done... to the Bucs? That's already a massive no from us. Having to listen to Bears fans brag about going further than Green Bay in the playoffs? Absolutely not. And then watching a division rival lift the Lombardi Trophy?

Nope. That doesn't work. Fortunately, it's just a simulation.

Over in the AFC, Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets lose in the AFC title game. Oh no, maybe the simulation is telling the truth...

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