The NFL released the entire preseason schedule on Wednesday afternoon, and you will be stunned to learn that the Green Bay Packers are scheduled to play two home games and two road games in the 2012 preseason. Shocking revelation! The Packers start the preseason on national television on Thursday, August 9, when they take on the San Diego Chargers on ESPN. Here's the full schedule.

Week 1 (August 9): @San Diego Chargers - 7:00 p.m. Central
Week 2 (August 16-19): Cleveland Browns
Week 3 (August 23-26): @Cincinnati Bengals
Week 4 (August 30-31): Kansas City Chiefs

The exact dates and times of the other three preseason games will be released later. The three games other than the ESPN game will all be on the Packers' statewide TV network. The NFL had an online streaming service for all preseason games last year if you live out of market. As Packers.com notes, the team will probably start their training camp before everyone else (except for the Hall Of Fame Game participants) because they're playing the Thursday Week 1 preseason game.

The Thursday night preseason opener will almost certainly shift the Packers' training camp schedule. Teams are allowed to open training camp 15 days prior to their first preseason contest, so rather than begin camp on a weekend, as the Packers have in the past (the preseason opener has fallen on a Saturday the last three years), they'll likely have players report a few days earlier.

We'll get the regular season schedule in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure when the preseason dates will be finalized.