You know you’re lucky, when going into week 14, all of your players are available at traing. Yes, there are some limited participants (Kevin King, Bryan Bulaga, Marcedes Lewis and others), but no one missed on Thursday.

Over the course of the last years, even in 2010 when the Packers won their last Super Bowl, Packers fans had to read an entire page of injured players for most of the time.

There hasn’t been a long time where all the starters are ready-to-go in December. Aaron Rodgers wasn’t there when the team needed him in 2017 and 2018, just because he was hurt. Other starters like Bryan Bulaga and not to name Kevin King (yes, they’re both on the injury report, but they’re good to go), Aaron Jones and many more couldn’t stay healthy.

When Matt LaFleur came to Green Bay, he changed the training schedule a little bit by switching the “day off” from Saturday to Friday, because he knew it could help the players staying healthy. Why? Because he listened to analysts and studies that said exactly this.

The Packers have one of the best foot specialists of the whole country in their town, but that doesn’t mean you have to use him excessively.

To be honest, I don’t believe that by changing the training schedule a little and by changing some training excercises, this would instantly lead to a team being healthy in week 14 of an NFL season. It certainly helps a little, but in my opinion there’s a whole lot of luck involved that the Packers have been blessed with so far.

Now, what do they do with it? When other teams have to throw in their practice squad players from the beginning of the season, because their starters are hurt and their second-stringers are exhausted, the Packers can sill have their second row on the field – not on all positions, but over the course of the game and in the playoffs, it definitely helps.

If the Packers were able to get that bye week by winning out (and the Saints losing to the 49ers), this would mean even more rest time and a 40% higher chance of getting to the NFC Championship Game.

So there definitely is a responsibility for the coaching staff and the players to do the best they can when it comes to getting a shot at that thing that naturally belongs to them, just by name.

Max Sachs is an international Packers fan from Germany. As a part of the Packers Germany, he tries to convince everyone around him to cheer for the greatest franchise on earth - or to start with, for American football in general. You can find him on Twitter @KaesekopfDE (the german translation for cheesehead).