Lots of Love for Green Bay

When it was 1-0 after a game against the Browns, no one paid attention. When it was 2-0 against the Browns and Bills, still no one outside of Wisconsin noticed. Now that it's 3-0, however, and the latest victim was the NFC Champion Cardinals, the Packers are starting to get some love.

Don Banks has crowned Green Bay the most dominant team of the preseason http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/don_banks/09/01/winners.losers/index.html?eref=sihpT1. And while he recognizes that that is an achievement without a reward, he believes it has its benefits, and that it may well be a sign of things to come for the 2009 Packers. Banks thinks Green Bay may be the best team in the NFC North.

And, speaking of the old black-and-blue division, Peter King thinks it may be one of the best divisions in football http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/peter_king/09/01/mail/index.html?eref=sircrc. Understand what a strong statement that is... to be in the same division with the Detroit Lions (0-16 in 2008) and be considered as the best or second-best division in the NFL: that's a lot of love for the Packers, Vikings, and Bears!

King says that he can imagine all three of those teams winning 12 games in 2009. Since each team plays four of its games against the two others, that means doing a lot of damage to the teams we're playing outside of the NFC North.

This isn't exactly one-plus-one-equals-two, but consider the implications of what Banks and King are saying this week: that the Packers are perhaps the best team in perhaps the best division in the NFL...?! Hmmm. If only we all still have reason to think and write such things come December!