The Green Bay Packers’ 2026 season finally gets underway on Sunday afternoon, and when it does, the Packers are likely to be underdogs in their first game. Week one finds them traveling to play the Minnesota Vikings, and as is likely to be the case in most games within the hotly-contested NFC North division this season, the home team is a slight favorite.
As of Wednesday, the Vikings currently hold a 1.5-point edge in the eyes of oddsmakers, with a slight advantage on the moneyline (-118 to the Packers’
+100, according to FanDuel sportsbook). That’s certainly a sign that the books see this game being nearly a toss-up, with Minnesota getting the slimmest of bumps due to home-field advantage.
However, no week is harder to predict around the NFL than Week 1, aside from perhaps Week 18. Changes abound across every team’s roster and coaching staff, and these two teams are no different. The Packers, of course, have a new defensive coordinator in Jonathan Gannon, while the Vikings will be rolling out a new starting quarterback in Kyler Murray. Making predictions is hard; it’s even harder when you don’t really have anything to go on.
But let’s do it anyway. It’s time to make our predictions as a staff for the Packers’ upcoming game. As always, picks below are for entertainment purposes only; in fact, you’ll surely be entertained to see how poorly we perform throughout the course of the season. But let’s get it going anyway.
As you can see, the APC staff is generally bullish on the Packers’ chances of winning this game outright, even despite questions on the offensive line and Josh Jacobs remaining ineligible to play. As for a shootout? That we’re not confident in, with every member of the staff who made a pick projecting the game to stay under the points total of 46.5.
Where do you fall on your prediction for Sunday? Let us know in the comments below.
