Packers’ Jayden Reed Gets Early Birthday Present With Contract Extension

GREEN BAY – Happy birthday, Jayden Reed.

The Green Bay Packers made a huge move at receiver before going on the clock for the NFL Draft on Friday.

According to ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter, the Packers and Reed agreed to a three-year contract extension worth $50.25 million in new money and including $20 million guaranteed.

Wide receiver Jayden Reed and the Packers now have agreed to a three-year contract extension worth $50.25 million in new money, including $20 million guaranteed, per agents Drew Rosenhaus and Ian Grutman. pic.twitter.com/O9e0pqOy2S
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) April 24, 2026

The contract comes just four days before his 26th birthday.

With that, Green Bay’s receiver corps – which shed Romeo Doubs and Dontayvion Wicks this offseason – is coming into a long-term focus. Entering the draft, they had only Matthew Golden and Savion Williams under contract for the 2027 season. Now, Reed, Golden and Williams are contractually tied to Green Bay through the 2028 season, with Reed through 2029 and perhaps Golden, as well, depending on his fifth-year option.

Big-Time Player

A second-round pick in 2023, Reed led the Packers with 64 receptions or 793 yards as a rookie and 55 receptions for 857 yards in 2024. In 2025, he tried to play through a foot injury before suffering a broken collarbone in Week 2. He had surgery on both, with the collarbone the more significant and limiting him to seven games. He caught 19 passes for 207 yards.

“You get better or get worse. So, my mindset is just do anything to get better,” Reed said after the season.

Reed was the 50th overall selection in 2023 and the sixth receiver off the board. Even with the extended absence last season and the abundance of targets to take care of for Jordan Love, Reed ranks 10th in the class with 138 catches, eighth with 1,857 yards and fifth with 15 touchdowns.

Reed It Again.. Staying Home 😤

Heat Check 🔥 @JaydenReed5 #RSR pic.twitter.com/ctYjbj0cOl
— Rosenhaus Sports (@rosenhaussports) April 24, 2026

Among the 26 receivers from the draft class who have been targeted at least 20 times, Reed and Puka Nacua are tied for No. 1 in yards per target.

Through his three seasons, Reed rewarded Love and Malik Willis with a 129.5 passer rating.

Reed caught 19-of-22 targets last season. He ranked second among all receivers with an 86.4 catch percentage. He added a touchdown in the playoffs but also had a costly drop on what might have been the winning drive.

“It’s definitely haunting me right now,” he said after the season. “It’s not a good feeling at all. … I ain’t even sleep, man. I didn’t sleep that next day till like 5 a.m., just thinking about it. I’m still thinking about it right now. I know that’s a play I got to make if I want to be a great player in this league. All I can do now is work. I can’t get it back. It ain’t no excuse. My only mindset is don’t let it happen again.”

All eyes are on Reed when he’s on the field. So, this isn’t a surprise: According to NFL data, Green Bay’s run game was 1.49 yards per carry better when he was on the field and the passing game was 0.63 yards better.

At 5-foot-11, Reed, mostly, is a slot receiver. While he’s excellent in that role because of his run-after-catch ability, in 2024 he caught 12-of-15 passes thrown 20-plus yards downfield, according to Pro Football Focus. He led the NFL with an 80.0 percent catch rate on those plays; no other player was at better than 63.7 percent.

Jayden Reed, Future at Receiver

At the owners meetings, coach Matt LaFleur told reporters that some players were upset with their roles. Reed is not one of those players.

“My opinion is the ball finds good energy,” he said in 2024. “If you support your teammates and your teammates support you, if you’ve got a good group that all care for each other that want each other to do great, everybody’s going to eat. That’s how I look at it.

“The ball is always going to find the good energy. I don’t care if I had zero catches for three weeks straight. If we’re winning, I’m happy. That’s just my mindset.”

The moves at receiver should mean more opportunities for everyone.

“I think there could be some positives from that,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said on Tuesday about the pared-back receiver corps. “That depends on if you stay healthy, right? So, for me, I’d like to have as many good players as you can because, if you do have injuries, you want guys that are ready to step in and have enough talent to perform.

“I do think that there is something to be said that if you can stay healthy and there’s continuity on the field, that you can be much a better team late into the season and into the playoffs because your players had so many reps on third down, red zone, different things like that. I think that can help if you stay healthy and that happens. Last year with Christian missing the first half and Jayden missing certain -- I don’t know if we ever developed that as much as we probably wanted to. But I’d rather really have a bunch of really, really good players and have the issue of having the mouths to feed more so than not having them.”

With Reed and Golden, the Packers have two small-ish receivers on the roster. If the Packers look to add another in this week’s draft, they’ll probably be a bigger receiver in the mold of Christian Watson.

Watson, of course, has his own contractual questions. He signed a one-year extension last season to keep him with the team through 2026. Will he be next in line for an extension? Or is there only so much money to go around at a position group filled with budget-busting contracts and with an extension looming for tight end Tucker Kraft?

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