The NFL announces the teams that will ‘host’ international games in 2024

There’s a decent chance that the Green Bay Packers could be featured as a road opponent next season.

According to ESPN’s Field Yates, the NFL has announced that the Carolina Panthers will host next year’s NFL game in Munich, Germany, while the Chicago Bears, Jacksonville Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings will be hosts in the league’s three games in London, England next season. If you’re looking at this from a Green Bay Packers perspective, this should set off alarms.

While the league has not scheduled divisional matchups for games across the pond lately, they have done so in the past. The most recent international game played by division opponents was last season in Mexico City, when the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals went head-to-head. Back in 2019, three international games were divisional matchups: Kansas City Chiefs vs. Los Angeles Chargers, Houston Texans vs. Jacksonville Jaguars and Panthers vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers. While Chiefs-Chargers was in Mexico City, Texans-Jaguars and Panthers-Buccaneers were both played across the Atlantic Ocean, setting a precedent for an overseas edition of Packers-Bears or Packers-Vikings.

Not only are the Packers scheduled to play “road” games against Chicago and Minnesota next season, but the Jaguars are also on their road slate, as the Packers will play the AFC South in 2024. Green Bay will play on the road against Jacksonville and the Tennessee Titans, per the NFL’s schedule rotation, and they’ll host the Texans and Indianapolis Colts.

So all three London games feature a host that the Packers will play on the road next season. By no means does that suggest that Green Bay is a lock to play in England in 2024, especially since the team recently played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium back in 2022, but it sure does seem like it would increase their odds, mathematically.

The Panthers, Bears, Jaguars and Vikings’ opponents will not be announced until the NFL’s full 2024 schedule is released sometime after April’s draft. Until then, just keep in mind that the Packers have a lot of potential at-bats for a road London game, based on their upcoming schedule.