THE CLAIM
The Green Bay Packers are 6-3 heading into a Sunday home game against the Minnesota Vikings, coming off of a thrashing of the New England Patriots’ defense. But the idea remains: their recent offensive explosion isn’t built to last.
The market doesn’t appear to be sold on the Packers being an elite team just yet. On Kalshi’s NFC North Division Winner market, the Packers are at 13%, behind the Chicago Bears at 37%, the Detroit Lions at 29% and the Vikings at 24%. That is a wide gap for a team that sits only a half-game behind the Lions and Vikings — the same six wins, one more loss — and one game behind the Bears.
THE VERDICT: LEAN CONFIRM
The Packers’ EPA efficiency has been running well ahead of their success rate, they lead the league in 20-yard plays, and explosive-play value has not usually held up over the rest of the season. Going by historical trends, the Packers’ offense projects as a roughly average offense the rest of the way: not a collapse, and not a top-10 one. If you lean towards giving them extra credit for future explosive plays with personnel fit to the task, it still wouldn’t make an elite offense overall.
The Packers are essentially tied with the Bears for the best net EPA in the NFC North, 5th in the league. Take away the 20-yard plays, though, and that net falls to 17th, which is closer to how the market is pricing them.
THE EVIDENCE
Through nine games, the Packers rank 10th in opponent-adjusted EPA per play (+0.045) and 20th in success rate (41.2%), including sacks and scrambles, with garbage time excluded. The unadjusted ranks are 12th and 21st.
The Packers have juiced their EPA efficiency beyond success-rate expectations through big plays. They lead the NFL in explosive-play rate: 7.9% of plays (40 of 505, against a league average of 5.6%). Twenty-one of those gained 30 or more yards. Those 40 plays have produced +120 EPA; their other 465 plays produced −100 EPA, or −0.215 per play.
The chunk plays have almost entirely come through the air. The passing game ranks 6th in adjusted EPA per dropback (+0.198) and 19th in success rate (43.9%), with the 2nd-highest explosive rate (11.2%). Thirty-seven of the 40 plays of 20-plus yards have been passes. If you strip out the 20-yard plays and re-rate the offenses, the Packers fall from 10th to 23rd, the largest drop in the league.
Their run game has been quite poor: 29th in adjusted EPA per designed run (−0.236) and 20th in success rate, with only three 20-yard runs. Even if the Packers continue to outperform with passing EPA versus success rate, their rushing attack will likely drag on results, and they’ve preferred a relatively run-heavy approach under head coach Matt LaFleur.
The Packers have the fourth-lowest early down pass rate so far this season (excluding garbage time).
The expected EPA given a 41.2% success rate is about −0.040, which means their actual efficiency is +0.085 higher this season. That outperformance differential is in the 94th percentile of 861 first-nine-game team-seasons from 1999 to 2025, and 2nd in the league this year, only behind the Denver Broncos.
In a regression on those 861 team-seasons, the first-nine-game EPA and success rate have relative weights of about 61% and 39%, so success rate is a strong contributor in projecting go-forward performance. Explosive-play rate adds nothing when added to the model.
