Packers vs. Vikings live updates: NFC North rivals square off in Kyler Murray's Minnesota debut

With Packers left guard Aaron Banks (knee) inactive, Green Bay warmed up with the following offensive line combination: Jordan Morgan at left tackle, undrafted veteran Donovan Jennings at left guard, Sean Rhyan at center, 2024 fifth-round pick Jacob Monk at right guard and Zach Bako-Bewele at right tackle. 

Green Bay gets one of its top players back to kick off 2026 with the return of tight end Tucker Kraft. He tore his ACL eight games into the 2025 season, but he was on pace for a career year before going down. That's why the Packers re-signed him to a four-year, $75 million deal with a $26.5 million signing bonus on Saturday. 

Kraft was averaging 9.1 yards after the catch per reception before going down in 2025, the best among all tight ends across the last 15 NFL seasons. San Francisco 49ers All-Pro George Kittle is the next closest player in this metric with a 6.9 yards after catch per reception average.

Green Bay started 2025 with a 9-4-1 record with All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons, but after he went down with a torn ACL in Week 15 at the Denver Broncos, the Packers lost their final five games including the playoffs. They'll need to figure out how to simulate quarterback pressure without one of the league's best while he continues to work his way back from his gruesome knee injury.

Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson, the 2022 NFL Offensive Player of the Year, is fresh off the worst season of his career in 2025 with career lows in both receiving yards (1,048) and receiving touchdowns (2) with J.J. McCarthy as his quarterback. His 8,480 yards receiving are the most in NFL history through a player's first six seasons, and Jefferson is looking for a major bounce back with Murray in 2026. 

A clear driver in Murray's Pro Bowl-level success as the Arizona Cardinals' starting quarterback in 2020 and 2021 was the presence of a No. 1 option wide receiver in All-Pro DeAndre Hopkins. When he was able to launch the ball deep downfield to Hopkins with regularity in the early 2020s,  Arizona's offense took flight, and the Cardinals made a playoff appearance in 2021, something the franchise had failed to do since 2015 when Carson Palmer was the starting quarterback. Without Hopkins, Murray's production was rather pedestrian.   

* Vikings WR core: Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, Jauan Jennings

Green Bay three-time Pro Bowl running back Josh Jacobs pled no contest to misdemeanor battery and criminal damage to property charges at the Brown County Courthouse on Thursday. He was put on the NFL commissoner's exempt list in August while the league investigated his May arrest.

That means he will be sidelined for the foreseeable future with a suspension looming. That means 2024 third-round pick MarShawn Lloyd will take over as the Packers' RB1 in the meantime. He spent the entire 2025 season on injured reserve with a hamstring injury. 

Since Flores became Minnesota's defensive coordinator in 2023, the Vikings lead the NFL with a 47.1% blitz rate. No other team in the entire league is above 40% in that span. In 2025, the Vikings led the NFL with a 49.5% blitz rate while no other NFL team was above a 40% rate last season. 

Packers quarterback Jordan Love profiled as a top 10 quarterback against the blitz in 2025 in numerous metrics including ranking second in the entire NFL in expected points added (EPA) per dropback when blitzed. 

Murray is 0-2 in his career against the Packers with just one total touchdown to three turnovers. He suffered a narrow 24-21 defeat at home against Green Bay on "Thursday Night Football" in 2021, and he and his Cardinals were blown out in Green Bay in 2024 by a score of 34-13. 

Packers quarterback Jordan Love (258 yards, 4 passing touchdowns and 1 interception on 22 of 32 passing) outdueled Murray (214 yards, 1 passing touchdown on 22 of 32 passing) in their matchup in 2024. 

From 2022 to 2025, Murray missed 30 of his possible 68 games, and in the five games Murray played for the Cardinals in 2025, he struggled, averaging a career low 227.0 total yards per game. His 5-foot-10-inch, 207-pound frame may not be built to last as the 29-year-old enters his eighth NFL season in 2026.   

Since 2022 across the last four NFL seasons, his athleticism hasn't yielded much in the production department or the victory department. Murray has ranked as a bottom-10 quarterback among the 33 with 25-plus starts the last four years in multiple metrics. 

Murray signed a one-year deal in free agency with the Vikings this offseason after playing in just five games with Arizona in 2025 because of a foot injury. Murray's first seven NFL seasons have been statistically historic. He is one of just four players ever with 20,000-plus passing yards (20,460) and 30-plus rushing touchdowns (32) in their first seven seasons. The other three have all been NFL MVPs: Cam Newton, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen.