Week 9 Picks - Preseason Season

This season has forced me to change how I approach games.

That’s not a bad thing, but it’s definitely something I’ve had to take some time to get used to. For as long as I’ve written for The Power Sweep and podcasted on Blue 58, I’ve been able to think about the Packers a certain way. They went into just about every game with a chance to win. More importantly, they went into every game with a defined identity that you could compare and contrast to their opponent.

Now, neither of those things seems true.

Through the first two months of the season, the Packers barely have an offensive identity beyond “now it’s our turn to have the ball.” They don’t run the ball well, can’t get everyone on the same page in the passing game, and are generally disappointed and confused. As to their chances to win every game…well, you’ve watched them. The closeness of the final score has often belied a game where the Packers either fell apart or were just playing a team that wasn’t good enough to really bury them.

As someone who wants to preview games, that’s hard spot to be in. Previewing a game involves getting to know the opponent, sure, but it’s ultimately about how the Packers match up against that opponent. Thinking about how the Packers have played so far this year, it’s really hard to say that they’ve played well enough at any point to justify trying to find ways they could take advantage of opposing matchups. And if you can’t do that…why bother with regular previews?

So that’s gotten me to the point where I think we need to think of the rest of the 2023 season as an extended series of preseason games. We’re looking for different things. Winning seems like, well, frankly too high of a bar, and it’s beside the point anyway. So let’s try to find areas where the Packers can grow. Let’s find areas where they can improve. Let’s find guys who are fighting for jobs, both this year and in the future.

Watching games that way is the only thing that’s going to keep me from going completely crazy, and it’s probably a better approach anyway. If we’re trying to be smarter Packers fans (because they’re better Packers fans, etc. etc.), ignoring the macro questions (did they win? Will they make the playoffs?) in favor of micro-level things is going to be crucial the rest of the way.

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