Packers Enter Playoffs Without No. 1 Receiver But With No. 1 Passing Game
GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers, in the words of Chicago Bears safety Jaquan Brisker, have “no one” at receiver. They certainly don’t have a No. 1 receiver like Dallas Cowboys star CeeDee Lamb, whom they’ll face in Sunday’s NFC wild-card playoff game.
Unless they do.
Really, perhaps the only thing the Packers’ receiver corps lacks is the name recognition that comes with experience.
“Yeah, that’s a big part of it,” rookie receiver Dontayvion Wicks said when asked what people like Brisker are missing. “We haven’t shown a lot yet but we do what we can. Like I always say, it’s just dog on dog when we go out there. However the game ends, that’s how it ends. How it ended [against Chicago], we did a lot. Actions show more than words. We went out there, did what we had to do – like we do every week.”
With Jordan Love finishing seventh with 4,159 passing yards, the Packers have a prolific passing game. They just don’t have a prolific receiver. Green Bay’s leader, rookie Jayden Reed, finished 48th with 64 receptions and 42nd with 793 receiving yards. The Packers were one of only four teams with an 800-yard receiver.
There were 186 individual games of 100-plus receiving yards. The Packers didn’t have any until Bo Melton and Reed during the final two games of the year. There were 118 games of 115-plus receiving yards. The Packers had zero.
So, no, the Packers don’t have a No. 1 receiver. They don’t have that pure go-to player, like they had for so many years with Davante Adams or the Cowboys have with Lamb, who led the NFL with 135 receptions and was second with 1,749 yards – both figures more than doubling Reed’s team-leading marks.
Yet, anyway.
For the Packers, the strength is in the numbers.
- Reed and Romeo Doubs led the Packers with eight receiving touchdowns. They were one of only four tandems with at least eight.
- Of the 10 receivers and tight ends on the 53-man roster, Love finished with a 100-plus rating to eight of them.
- Nine players led the team in receptions in at least one game: Doubs (four), Reed (three), Dontayvion Wicks (three), Christian Watson (two), Luke Musgrave (one), Tucker Kraft (one), Melton (one), Aaron Jones (one) and AJ Dillon (one).
- Over the final nine games, the Packers were third in “explosive” passing plays – defined as a gain of 16-plus yards. Eleven players contributed, led by Wicks (14), Reed (10), Doubs (eight) and Kraft (six).
Added together, a strength-in-numbers passing game has overpowered defenses. Over the final eight games of the season, Love ranked No. 1 in passing yards while not having a perceived No. 1 receiver.
“I think we’ve got a lot of playmakers,” Love said. “We can spread the ball to anybody out there. At any point, anybody can get the ball. We’ve got a really unselfish receiver, tight end, running back room. Everybody wants to see everybody else succeed. I think that’s the awesome part about it.”
During their final years together, Aaron Rodgers grew reliant on Adams. And why not? Adams was arguably the best receiver in the NFL. More often than not, targeting Adams early and often led to yards and points by the bushel. But not all the time. When defenses took away Adams, the Packers frequently had problems moving the ball.
With this team, everyone is an option on every play.
“I think it allows the quarterback to read whatever concept true to how it’s intended to be read,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “Definitely been part of teams where we’ve tried to force-feed a guy the ball and sometimes that does not work out in your favor. Other times it does. I think Jordan would tell you, he’s got confidence in whoever’s out there. All those guys have proven to make plays for us throughout the course of the season.”
With the depth, the Packers have been able to take a licking and keep on ticking through the extended absences of Watson and Musgrave, in particular, and a revolving-door receiver corps, in general.
The last five games, five different players have led the team in receiving yards. There hasn’t been a yardage leader in consecutive weeks since Doubs vs. New Orleans and Detroit in Weeks 3 and 4.
“I think our wideout room is extremely deep,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said. “It’s deeper than it’s been in a really long time. It’s a testament to our personnel guys, getting the right guys in here. It’s a testament to (Jason) Vrable and Quinshon (Odom), the guys coaching them in that room, and their mindset, the way they practice.”
That mindset allowed the undrafted rookie Malik Heath to go from total afterthought for the first nine games to a key contributor. And it allowed Melton, a seventh-round pick by Seattle in 2022, to go from a practice-squad player for most of his first two NFL seasons to a playmaker down the stretch.
“One thing we preach a lot is, even if you’re on the practice squad, you still prepare every week like you’re going to play,” Stenavich said. “That way, when your time comes, you’ll be ready. And that’s a testament right there to Bo. He came, he got his opportunity, he showed up and he did a great job. It’s the whole mindset of that room I couldn’t be happier with.”
Receivers get paid to catch passes and score touchdowns. However, what often goes unnoticed is their willingness to do the dirty work. That’s what made Allen Lazard such an effective player for the Packers.
Green Bay’s receivers, even while not getting the ball as much as they might like, have relished their roles as blockers. Heath and Wicks have been excellent in that role. When healthy, so has Watson, a key blocker throughout his career at North Dakota State.
“I know we all get caught up in the stats and what they’re doing in terms of the number of catches, receiving yards, touchdowns, all that. But I thought that it really showed how competitive they were in the run game,” LaFleur said after the Chicago game. “The effort, the physicality, the strain – when you get that from that corps, it just brings a different dimension to your offense, a different feel to your offense.”
General manager Brian Gutekunst took plenty of heat for his decision to not add a veteran receiver or tight end to the youngest groups in the NFL. The money required to sign a veteran and the snaps they would have taken from the talented youngsters on the roster made it a bad business decision.
That led to some predictable growing pains through the first half of the season, but the rookie group of Musgrave (second round), Reed (second round), Kraft (third round) and Wicks (fifth round) has gotten better with every week.
Since the 1970 merger:
- The Packers had 191 receptions by rookies, 28 more than any other team.
- The Packers became the only team with four rookies with 30-plus receptions (Reed, 64; Wicks, 39; Musgrave, 34; Kraft, 30).
- Musgrave and Kraft joined New England’s Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez as the only rookie tight end tandem with 30-plus catches.
So, do the Packers not have a No. 1 receiver? Or do they have a bunch of future No. 1 receivers?
Whatever the answer, the Packers are positioned to dominate through the air for years.
And perhaps even on Sunday against the powerful Cowboys.
“I feel like it don’t matter because it helps us win that we have a lot of guys that can go and make a play,” Wicks said. “It doesn’t matter who the ball goes to. We know whoever’s got it is going to make something happen with it.”
