The Green Bay Packers will travel to Minneapolis to open the 2026 regular season against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday at 3:25 p.m., renewing one of the NFL’s more familiar divisional matchups in the season’s first game.
Season opener set: Packers at Vikings
The season-opening meeting places the Packers on the road to start their 2026 campaign, with kickoff set for 3:25 p.m. Sunday in Minneapolis, where the Vikings will host Green Bay.
The scheduling hands immediate emphasis to a rivalry that has settled into a recurring slot on the calendar: an early‑season clash that frequently carries extra familiarity and intensity simply because the teams meet so often.
Green Bay’s pattern of road season openers
The Packers beginning the year away from home is part of a clear pattern. Green Bay will open the season on the road for the seventh time in the last eight seasons, and this marks the 14th time in the last 17 seasons that the Packers will start the year away from Lambeau Field when the opponent is the Minnesota Vikings.
That sequence underscores how frequently the two clubs have been paired for early games and how often Green Bay’s calendar has started in hostile venues. For the Packers, the 2026 opener continues a recent trend of beginning campaigns away from their home stadium.
Beyond scheduling and history, the matchup offers both teams a straightforward opening assignment: establish a tone in the first game and settle through-game routines on the road. For Minnesota, the opener provides a home-field first test against a familiar foe. For Green Bay, it’s another season-start challenge away from home that continues a multi-year pattern of road openers.
Kickoff for the Packers-Vikings opener is set for Sunday at 3:25 p.m., and the result will immediately become part of a long ledger of early-season meetings between the two clubs.
