When the Green Bay Packers acquired Micah Parsons in a blockbuster trade with the Dallas Cowboys just before the start of the 2025 NFL campaign, many tabbed them as immediate Super Bowl favorites.
The Packers definitely showed flashes of being a championship-caliber team throughout the first couple of months of the season, but then, Parsons tore his ACL in Week 15, which — combined with a plethora of other injuries — but Green Bay’s Super Bowl hopes on ice.
The initial hope was that Parsons would be ready for the start of 2026, or that he would at least return early on in the season.
But the five-time Pro Bowler recently revealed that he won’t be back until October at the earliest, which puts a serious damper on the Packers’ season before it even begins.
Bleacher Report’s Brad Gagnon continued to rain on Green Bay’s parade in a recent piece, questioning if Parsons will ever be able to fully recover in time for a Packers playoff run.
“A first-team All-Pro with 12.5 sacks in 14 games is the type of player who can make or break a team’s season. It’s becoming apparent the Packers won’t get anything close to a full campaign with Parsons, who could have trouble getting up to speed until late in the year if at all. It’s a shame, because he’s not remotely replaceable,” Gagnon wrote.
Further complicating the matter is that Green Bay is pretty thin on the edge to begin with, as it traded away Rashan Gary, and Lukas Van Ness has been a big disappointment.
The Packers did nab Dani Dennis-Sutton in the NFL Draft, so perhaps he could develop into a key contributor for the team, but as Gagnon noted: there is no replacing Parsons.
It also doesn’t help that Green Bay plays in what is probably the toughest division in football, as all four teams in the NFC North finished above .500 last season.
The Packers went 9-7-1 last season, ultimately losing to the Chicago Bears in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.
Green Bay has made the playoffs three years in a row and in six of the last seven seasons. The Packers have not made it to the Super Bowl, however, since the 2010-11 campaign.
Matt LaFleur’s club will open the 2026 season on the road against the Minnesota Vikings.
