Age Is Just A Number For the Green Bay Packers

The Green Bay Packers’ youth movement following Aaron Rodgers’ departure hasn’t stopped them from fielding a competitive football team. Green Bay reached the postseason in each of Jordan Love’s first two years as a starter, a run that included a 48-32 beatdown of the Dallas Cowboys on their own turf during Wild Card Weekend.

For the third consecutive year, the Packers are the youngest team in the NFL. However, that should not be used as an excuse for falling short of their goals, which are taking the next step into the NFL's elite and bringing the Lombardi Trophy back to Titletown.

Elgton Jenkins is the oldest member of the unit, and he’s only 29 years old. Still, the core of Green Bay’s offense has had three offseasons and two full seasons to build chemistry through OTAs, training camp, the preseason, and the regular season.

It’s time for them to take the next step. This offense is young, but there’s a difference between being young and being inexperienced. It was fair to view youth as an obstacle for the Packers in 2023, but we shouldn’t be having that same conversation two years later.

Even if fans or the media want to label youth as an obstacle for the 2025 Packers, we can’t ignore what this team accomplished in 2023. They were the youngest team since the 1970s to make the playoffs, and they were also playing high-level football in the second half of the season. That late-season run included a 27-19 home win over the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and a 29-22 Thanksgiving road victory against the then 8-2 Detroit Lions.

They followed that with a complete demolition of the No. 2-seeded Dallas Cowboys in the postseason, as I mentioned before. Then they went toe to toe with the No. 1-seeded San Francisco 49ers, a team that had the entire Avengers roster and had them on their heels for 58 minutes in the Divisional Round.

So even when it was fair to see youth as an obstacle, Green Bay still exceeded expectations by challenging and beating some of the best and most experienced teams in football. Now, 34 regular-season games and three playoff games later, the experience within the so-called young team should be much more vast.

With that experience now in place, Matt LaFleur spent the offseason figuring out how his offense will attack defenses. The number of weapons at his disposal might be the kind of challenge every coach hopes to have.

“I think it gives you a lot of flexibility in regards to where do you want to go with (the ball), but I think that’s part of the beauty of this time of year,” LaFleur said during OTAs. “You’re trying to work through different things. Obviously, you’re going to throw in some new wrinkles that you get by watching other teams or maybe watching yourself.’

“I think it organically develops over time and into training camp and preseason,” he added, “and I think we’ll have a much better idea as we go into Week 1.”

Age, in reality, is just a number for this Packers offense. They are young, but, as I mentioned earlier, they are not inexperienced. Regardless of how old they are on paper, it’s time for them to get on the field and deliver results. This group has been through enough battles to know what it takes, and now it’s about turning potential into production.