Green Bay Packers

The Packers looked a lot like one of the top contenders in the entire NFC after 14 weeks of action: 9-3-1 and riding a four-game win streak that included wins over each of their NFC North foes. What could go wrong? Well, a lot — primarily all-world EDGE Micah Parsons suffering a season-ending knee injury, and Jordan Love missing time with a concussion and shoulder injury. Five consecutive losses later, and Matt LaFleur and company were once again sent home far sooner than most cheeseheads expected.

The good news is that this squad looked capable of playing with anyone at full health last season. The bad news is that they might be forced to mostly just rely on last season's roster getting the job done in 2026, as this franchise has very little cap room to work with, and only has two draft picks inside the top-120 selections due to the Parsons trade.

Offensive Line: Getting better at protecting Jordan Love is particularly important, considering just how volatile his splits were when under pressure (No. 21 in EPA, -0.29) vs. when kept clean (No. 1 in EPA, +0.55).

Interior Defensive Line: Adding mid-priced pieces in free agency and/or the draft is probably a good idea considering how much worse this defense was against the run (28th in success rate allowed) compared to the pass (13th) in 2025.

Linebacker: Adding bodies to the front seven to help shore up the run defense looks like one of the clearer ways for this team to immediately improve in 2026.