Packers, Raiders in talks to play 2019 preseason game in Canada

For the better part of the last half decade, the Green Bay Packers play a preseason game against the Oakland Raiders, and 2019 could continue that tradition. However, this year’s game could take place in an unconventional location. During the annual league meeting in Phoenix, team president Mark Murphy revealed that the Packers and Raiders have discussed playing an exhibition in Saskatchewan or Winnipeg later this year.

The Packers and Raiders faced off in three of the last five preseasons, including 2018. In that most recent exhibition, Oakland hosted the game after traveling to Green Bay for the previous two. The two teams share plenty of ties, with Raiders head coach Jon Gruden spending several seasons in the 1990s on former Packers head coach Mike Holmgren’s staff and Green Bay’s Hall of Fame general manager Ron Wolf began his scouting career in Oakland, among other connections.

Though the idea of hosting a preseason game in Saskatchewan or Winnipeg seems new, the NFL has played games in Canada in the not-so-distant past. The Buffalo Bills played both exhibition and regular-season games in Toronto from 2008 through 2013.

While the Packers will have to wait for the full details of their 2019 schedule, they learned Monday that the first game of the entire regular season will take place between them and the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field on Sept. 5.