GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The Green Bay Packers don't quite pass the eye test for a legitimate Super Bowl contender right now, but how many teams do? Any?

Head coach Matt LaFleur's team has played some aesthetically unpleasant football since two emphatic wins over the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders to open the season. Green Bay's offense looked dreadful in a stunning 13-10 loss to the Cleveland Browns in Week 3. In a 40-40 tie against the Dallas Cowboys, it was the Packers' defense that collapsed after halftime. In last Sunday's 27-18 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, a team that had been getting its doors blown off in recent weeks, the offense sputtered through the first half and the defense faltered in the second. Add in sporadic special teams deficiencies and it's easy to see why fans may be pessimistic about how the Packers look through six weeks despite their 3-1-1 record.

However, the standings don't lie. First place in the NFC North, the No. 2 seed in the NFC and one of four one-loss teams in the NFL don't lie. There's significant parity across the league this season. The Kansas City Chiefs look human. The Philadelphia Eagles, too. The Buffalo Bills have lost two in a row and the Lions have shown cracks. Daniel Jones is the quarterback of what might be the AFC's best team in Indianapolis, Aaron Rodgers is turning back the clock in Pittsburgh and the Baltimore Ravens are 1-5. Anything can happen.

The Packers are still legitimate Super Bowl contenders, just like they were at 2-0, whether they look like it or not.

"I think we have a really good team," quarterback Jordan Love said after beating the Bengals. "I think it just comes down to being our best every time we touch that field and executing every play. I think we've seen what we can do against some good teams and we've seen what we do when we don't play our best. Just comes down to playing your best on Sunday, or you'll get beat. Everybody knows in the locker room we've got a really good team, but every other team is good as well, so you've just got to be at your best."

The Packers are the NFL's only team to hold a double-digit lead in every game this season. They're also one of only three teams not to face a double-digit deficit, along with the Colts and Houston Texans. The Colts' biggest deficit has been eight points, the Texans' seven points and the Packers' only three. The talent on both sides of the ball is evident in Green Bay.

The Packers only have one double-digit win, however, a 27-13 beatdown of the Lions to open the year. The Commanders scored a garbage-time touchdown the following week to lose by nine in Green Bay and Bengals wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase transforming into an alien helped Cincinnati lose by single digits at Lambeau Field last Sunday. Those two instances of relinquishing a double-digit lead are more understandable than the fourth-quarter collapse against the Browns and whatever happened to Jeff Hafley's defense against the Cowboys.

The Packers could easily be 5-0 entering Sunday's game at the Arizona Cardinals, but such is life in the NFL. They haven't exactly stepped on throats the last three games after taking big leads, but how can they do that going forward?

"That's a great question," LaFleur said. "Otherwise we'd do that, you know?"

Part of the reason the Packers have struggled to pull away in recent weeks -- all three phases have been at fault -- is their second-half defense. On the season, 80 of Green Bay's 102 points allowed have come in the second half. The Cowboys and Bengals scored on seven of their nine second-half drives combined against the Packers, plus the Cowboys scored on their lone overtime possession.

"We're just like, why is that happening?" LaFleur said. "Are we running out of gas? Obviously, (the Bengals) got the ball to start the second half, they go on that 18-play drive or whatever it was, ate up damn near 10 minutes on the clock or whatever it was. I don't know, does that gas you out? Does that make you more tired? Do we need to roll more guys in the first half?

"There's things we talked about in regards to, are we well-conditioned enough from practice? Did our guys do enough on the bye week? All that stuff has kind of been floated around, trying to figure out why this is happening because certainly we're trying to find solutions."

Despite some of the doom and gloom hanging over the fan base, the Packers have done things well over the entirety of their first five games, too, believe it or not. They rank eighth in scoring offense and ninth in yards per game, 10th in scoring defense and fifth in yards per game allowed. Gone are the days of Mike Pettine- and Joe Barry-run defenses, too. The Packers rank first in rushing yards allowed per game with a meager 73.

The most glaring statistic from the first third of Green Bay's season that has made some of these games closer than they should be is its mere two takeaways, an Evan Williams interception in Week 1 and a Xavier McKinney pick in Week 3. The Packers ranked fourth in the league with 31 takeaways last season.

Defensive end Micah Parsons was asked what it would take for the Packers to start turning teams over and said, "teams not playing scared." Quarterbacks are getting the ball out quickly to counter Green Bay's pass rush, which has made it more difficult for the coverage team and pass rushers to force turnovers.

"It's tough on the DBs, it's tough on the D-line, it's tough on everyone," Parsons said.

But all that matters are wins, no matter how grimy some of the football looks. The Packers have three of them to go along with a tie, good enough for a perch atop the division they haven't won since 2021.

The beauty of some shortcomings showing their face this early in the season -- Love's two clumsy and costly interceptions, leaky pass defense and protection issues on kicking units -- is that the Packers have plenty of time to fix them before what they hope is another playoff appearance. They clearly have the talent to do so as well. That being said, we heard all last season about how close they were in losses to the Lions, Vikings and Eagles and how correctable the self-inflicted damage was before some of those same mistakes cost them their season in Philadelphia. They never got fixed.

There's no guarantee this year's mistakes will get fixed, either, even if it's early in the season, but at least the Packers have a convincing win over another Super Bowl contender in the Lions this year as proof they can be in that elite tier with this year's team. They didn't have that in 2024.

"I just think we've got to continue to work on trying to get a little bit better each and every day," LaFleur said. "To say that we're close, who knows? I mean, what is close? So I know that we can play better, certainly. I think the guys know that there's a lot of things that we need to clean up, but the bottom line in this league is you've got to find a way to win each and every game."

Up next for the Packers are the Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers on the road, then the Carolina Panthers and Eagles at home. NFL narratives are fickle, and the Packers can become Super Bowl frontrunners once again in just as much time as they've seemingly fallen from that pedestal in the eyes of fans. It's not like they're far from that peak, anyway, as multiple sportsbooks have the Packers as favorites or co-favorites to win the NFC.

Such is the state of the NFL in 2025, when there are no clear-cut powerhouses and a team that hasn't looked like one in more than a month is rightfully still a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

Packers are still a legitimate Super Bowl contender, whether they look like it or not