It's a new year which means anything can happen, especially in football. The NFL is so exciting because on any given Sunday, one team can beat another. In any given year, one team can go from worst to first. Cellar-dwellers from last season are suddenly powerhouses the next. You just never know in the NFL.
But in the NFC North, you pretty much do know.
The Green Bay Packers have won the NFC North for four straight years, and it will be a bit of a surprise if they don't extend that streak to five.
"Put it this way, little or nothing that's happened since the end of last season - when the Packers were merely minutes away from beating the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game - to make coach Mike McCarthy's team worse," ESPN Packers reporter Rob Demovsky wrote. "As long as quarterback Aaron Rodgers is healthy and on top of his game, which he was last season on the way to winning the NFL's MVP award, there's little reason to think anyone can overtake the Packers. Heck, even when Rodgers was out for half of the 2013 season, the Packers won the division anyway."
Don't believe him? Think he's writing from a source of bias? Fine, how about we ask Green Bay's dreaded rival, ESPN Vikings reporter Ben Goessling?
"It's still the Packers," Goessling wrote (told you so). "They lost a couple cornerbacks (Tramon Williams and Davon house) in free agency, and as usual, they're going to have some questions on defense. But this is a team that dominated the Seahawks at CenturyLink Field for 55 minutes before an epic meltdown. Even Vikings coach Mike Zimmer, whose team might be the fastest riser in the NFC North, wasn't ready to say his team has closed the gap yet last week at the NFL owners meetings and called the Packers the standard the Vikings were trying to reach. Maybe the shock from the NFC title game loss will linger in Lambeau through 2015, but with the entire offense intact around Rodgers, the Packers are still the class of the division."
Goessling is right to point out Green Bay's loss of cornerbacks as a source of concern. After all, you don't lose two contributors in the secondary and maintain your top-ten ranking in pass defense. Lucky for the Packers, this year's draft has a few very talented cornerbacks and Green Bay may have its sights set on one of them.
