Green Bay spent the offseason trying to explain how a 21-3 playoff lead evaporated in a single fourth quarter; Tampa Bay spent it trying to explain how it let a fourth straight division title slip away on a tiebreaker.
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SUN OCT 4 · 1:00 PM ET
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Best BetBuccaneers +105
Green Bay's short price feels more like a reflection of the roster's name recognition than where this team actually stands in early October — it opens the year without Micah Parsons and without a settled backfield behind an injured Josh Jacobs. Tampa Bay gets a new offensive coordinator with real ties to Baker Mayfield and a defense that got real investment this offseason after a hot-seat finish. At plus money, the Buccaneers look like the better value to win outright.
Packers
+Love coming off an efficient prior season by the numbers
+Kraft trending toward Week 1 clearance
+staff pushing faster, pass-first scheme this camp
−Parsons out, eyeing Week 6 return at earliest
−Jacobs out with groin, backfield depth unproven
−closed last season on 5 straight losses, including blown playoff lead
Buccaneers
+closed last season by beating Carolina
+new OC Robinson has prior ties to Mayfield
+Irving reportedly impressing new coordinator in camp
−lost 4th straight division title on a tiebreaker
−Egbuka (toe) and Wirfs (hamstring) both banged up
−went 1-4 in last 5 games closing out last season
Jordan Love and Baker Mayfield headline this one, though neither has thrown a real pass yet in 2026. Love got the start in Green Bay's preseason opener and looked exactly like a guy shaking off rust, completing 3 of 5 for 18 yards before giving way to the backups. Mayfield didn't even suit up for Tampa Bay's preseason opener against the Jets — Todd Bowles rested him on purpose, wanting the last year of his contract to start clean in Week 1 rather than banged up in August. The stakes by the time these two actually see the field Sunday, October 4 are bigger than an early-season slate usually carries: Green Bay is trying to prove last year's collapse was a fluke, and Bowles is coaching for his job after Tampa Bay let a division title slip away.
The injury sheets on both sides are the real story right now. Micah Parsons tore his ACL and meniscus in December, had surgery before the new year, and is eyeing a Week 6 return against Dallas as his best-case scenario — which means Green Bay's defense opens the season, and very likely faces Tampa Bay, without its best pass rusher. Josh Jacobs is out with a groin issue and MarShawn Lloyd managed just 13 yards on 4 carries in the preseason opener, so the backfield picture is muddy too. Tampa Bay has its own worry in Emeka Egbuka, who picked up a sprained toe in practice with the severity still being evaluated. None of that has fully worked its way into a line still more than 7 weeks from kickoff.
Tampa Bay's actual bet for 2026 is Zac Robinson, the new offensive coordinator who coached Mayfield's position group in Los Angeles back in 2022. He's bringing wide-zone concepts and more tempo to an offense that stagnated last season, and early camp buzz has Bucky Irving as one of the players benefiting most from the new scheme. Green Bay is making its own philosophical shift, with Matt LaFleur and Adam Stenavich pushing more no-huddle and a faster, pass-first approach after two years of a rushing attack that never got going. Two teams, two new tempos, and a total that's going to test which offense actually shows up first.
Green Bay Packers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Context matters here. Green Bay made the playoffs as the No. 7 seed for a third straight year, but the finish was ugly — a five-game slide that ended with a 21-3 halftime lead blown against Chicago in the Wild Card round, 31-27. That collapse is the reason this year's Packers team gets talked about as much for what it needs to fix as for what it has. Tampa Bay's finish was less dramatic but still costly: an 8-9 season and a tiebreaker loss ended the Buccaneers' four-year run atop the NFC South, even after the team won its finale over Carolina to close the year on a high note.
Green Bay Packers
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Both rosters are still being built out — Tristan Wirfs is working through a hamstring issue up front for Tampa Bay, and Tucker Kraft's knee is trending toward clearance for Green Bay's Week 1 opener against Minnesota, which would have him full-go long before this one. There's a lot of season between now and Tampa Bay, but the shape of both teams — a defense-first Packers group trying to replace its best player for the opening stretch, and a Bucs team betting on a new offensive voice to end a stretch of underachieving finishes — is already visible.
