Week 13 of the 2023 NFL season will bring us a must-watch Sunday Night Football showdown between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs. All eyes will be on quarterbacks Jordan Love and Patrick Mahomes, who is preparing to make his Lambeau Field debut.
The Chiefs have played the Packers three times since they drafted the Texas Tech product in 2017. But while two of those games were at Arrowhead, Mahomes was ruled out with a knee injury when his team traveled to Wisconsin.
The two-time Super Bowl champion also had the chance to play at the emblematic stadium in preseason games, but he didn’t suit up on those occasions. Either way, Mahomes didn’t hide his excitement for finally getting to play there.
“I’m excited, if you love football, you love Lambeau Field. I’m excited to get the opportunity to play there,” Mahomes said, via Pro Football Talk. “I know it’s going to be a hostile environment; the fans are going to be loud, it’s going to be a lot like Arrowhead is to other teams.“
Mahomes praises Jordan Love
Fans will probably intrigued to see how Jordan Love performs in prime-time against arguably the league’s best quarterback. Mahomes addressed this situation, showing nothing but praise for the former Utah State signal-caller.
“Jordan has gotten better and better every single game,” Mahomes said. “He’s always had the talent, but when you get more and more reps — I mean he didn’t play for three years basically — so he’s gotten more and more reps, you can see how much more comfortable he’s getting.”
Love was drafted by the Packers late in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, but he sat behind Aaron Rodgers for three seasons before he finally got his chance. Though he struggled to be consistent, he did show glimpses of his talent and came up with big plays in clutch situations. Therefore, Mahomes is not taking anything for granted ahead of Sunday.
“They have playmakers everywhere, and their defense can play. … It will be a great challenge for us, and they’re a hot football team that just beat another great football team so they have confidence coming in. We’ve got to match that confidence and try to find a way to win a football game.”
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Different goals
With an 8-3 record, the Chiefs seem to be on pace to clinch the AFC West division title. But Mahomes and company have even higher aspirations, hoping to claim the top seed in the AFC to have a bye in the Wild Card.
The Packers, on the other hand, aim to head into the final weeks with chances of making the playoffs. At 5-6, Green Bay is currently in the hunt for a Wild Card berth. We’ll see which team gets closer to their respective goals this week.