The Green Bay Packers will face off against the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs this Sunday night at Lambeau Field. This will be the second time in his career that Jordan Love gets to play a familiar opponent, and that seemed to go well for him on Thanksgiving in Detroit.

“Familiar” is of course a bit of a stretch, since this isn’t the same Chiefs defense from 2021, but you get the point. What’s important is that this isn’t the same Jordan Love either. In that November game against Kansas City in 2021, Aaron Rodgers was in the middle of an MVP campaign, and somehow a bigger story coming out of Green Bay was the vaccination status of the legendary Packers QB.

Meanwhile, Jordan Love had just been tossed into the fire of being a stand-in for one of the greatest QBs of all time on relatively short notice. It wasn’t exactly his “time to shine.”

Despite the situation, Jordan Love had a modest performance against the Chiefs, and led a few good drives that should have been enough to win that game. Many people have even said that he kept up with Patrick Mahomes, I’ll let you look at the box score and decide that for yourselves though. Ultimately, Love will get to suit up this Sunday for a primetime game against the team that beat him in his first career start.

Chiefs Open as 6.5 Point Favorites

It’s no secret that the Chiefs are heavily favored to win this game. Kansas City’s defense looks better than it has at any point over the last several years. The Chiefs’ offense has been struggling by their standards, but it is still led by two Hall of Famers in Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce who have both maintained a high level of play this year.

This is the best football team the Packers will play for the rest of the regular season, and it is the ultimate test for this young group.

Is Green Bay out of the playoff race if they lose this game? No, in fact they can still get to 10 wins with a loss to the Chiefs, and a loss this week is probably the most likely outcome. Nonetheless, this team has an opportunity to prove it’s worth against a very capable opponent. This is more than a “revenge game” for Jordan Love. This is an opportunity for this team to say “not only are we trying to make the playoffs, we’re trying to do something once we’re there.”

Predictions

Who knows if the Chiefs, who are undefeated when Taylor Swift attends their games, will have superstition on their side (I actually just found myself google searching if the international leg of Taylor Swift’s tour was over… and it is) but either way the Packers will likely lose this game. I’m going to predict a score of 27-16 in a game that will probably never feel all that close. This Packers team has an opportunity to fight back and make it a game, and if that ends up happening fans can rejoice in the real possibility of a playoff push in Jordan Love’s first season as a full-time starting QB.

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Zack is a college student and cheesehead from California. When he’s not in class or writing, you can find him talking about the Packers on Twitter at @Zack_Upchurch.

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