The time has come for football to begin taking up space in people's calendars. The Green Bay Packers will face the San Diego Chargers in their first preseason match of year.

Okay, it is not the beginning of the season, but it will be the first time players gear up and take the field with their teams in front of a huge crowd.

Thursday's game will be played in the home of the Chargers at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. 

So mark this down on your calendar, the action begins at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. CT and the game will be airing on ESPN. 

It will be the first time Aaron Rodgers takes a football field since the mystifying loss to the New York Giants in the NFC Division Championship game. Everybody expected the Packers to compete in the Super Bowl after finishing the season 15-1 and blowing out opponents week after week.

For the Chargers, they will try to improve from last season's 8-8 season, which had them just missing the playoffs to Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos. The Chargers won four out of their last five games, but it was not enough to get past the Broncos.

In 2012 the Broncos added future hall of famer Peyton Manning and the Chargers lost wide receiver Vincent Jackson to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Philip Rivers has a new target in former Bronco Eddie Royal after San Diego signed him to a three-year contract.

The Chargers will definitely have a lot of question marks heading into preseason and most likely the regular season. It will be interesting to follow the performance of this team.

As for Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, they have cemented themselves as one of the best teams in the league. Rodgers, though getting a late start to his career, is one of the greatest quarterbacks right now.