Packers First-Round Pick Matthew Golden’s Coach: ‘He’s Built for It’

GREEN BAY, Wis. – For Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst, finding out the “why” of draft prospects is critical.

First-round pick Matthew Golden’s “why” is his family.

Golden had a challenging upbringing. He was raised by his mom and grandmother and sometimes lived in hotels.

With a $9.4 million signing bonus coming, he said before the draft that he wants to buy his grandmother a house. And not just any house. He wants to buy back her house. He recently hosted a football camp in his hometown of Houston and drove past it and saw it’s for sale.

“That’s the house I grew up in when I was younger and it got taken away from us a couple years ago,” Golden said after being drafted.

That hunger to succeed, and not just for himself, was evident to his receivers coach at Texas, Chris Jackson.

“He’s a down-to-earth, hardworking, blue-collar type of kid who comes from humble beginnings,” Jackson told Packers On SI. “So, to me, it’s the fact when he came here, he wasn’t living off of press clips or what the expectations were, what he did successfully at Houston. He was a kid that came here that wanted to start fresh and earn what was given to him. So, I think that’s the same mentality that he’s going to take to Green Bay and NFL.”

Golden spent his first two seasons at Houston before transferring to Texans for his final season. After a series of big games down the stretch, followed by a superb workout at the Scouting Combine, the Packers drafted Golden in the first round on Thursday.

The headliner on Golden’s path to the draft was his 4.29-second time in the 40-yard dash. The fastest receiver in the draft is more than just fast, though, which is why the Packers for the first time since 2002 drafted a receiver in the first round.

Said Jackson, who was a receiver with the Packers in 2002 when they used their No. 1 pick on Javon Walker: “Strong-minded young man, strong hands, can run through the catch point, physical, can block, is going to bring you special teams value, is going to bring you a good teammate. He’ll do his role for other people to be successful and, when his time is asked to do what he needs to do, he’s going to do that to the best of his ability. And he’s willing to learn and he’s coachable. Loves being coached.”

The #Packers hadn't drafted a receiver in the first round since 2002. Chris Jackson was a receiver on that team. Now, he's the receivers coach at Texas, where he coached first-round pick Matthew Golden. ⬇️https://t.co/tNQK6oAl9P
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) April 28, 2025

The phrase “run through the catch point” is one reason why NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah ranked Golden the best receiver in the draft. But what does it mean?

“That means basically catching a ball in traffic and being able to run through an arm tackle,” Jackson said of making plays on slants, dig routes and in-breakers. “That goes, I think, to his background of being a kickoff returner. As a kickoff returner, you’ve got to run through arm tackles. You can’t be brought down by arm tackles.

“So, we gave him a couple opportunities where he can make little one-on-one plays making the catch on the outside, whether it be a 14-yard stop route, making one man miss, running through an arm tackle and turning a 14-yard gain into a 26- or 31-yard gain.

“Those things, where some players just are happy with the catch and then they kind of go into fetal position or be tackled by kind of an easy tackle, a one-arm tackle, he’s able to run through arm tackles and create explosive plays off of the dropback by turning slant routes and in-breaking routes into more explosive plays.”

Golden understands the expectations – he wouldn’t call it pressure – of being the long-awaited first-round receiver by the Packers, a team that has reached the playoffs each of the last two years but been eliminated by the eventual NFC champion.

“I know it’s going to come with a lot,” he said, “but that’s what I want. I want to be pushed. I want as much as I can get. I’m going to put my best foot forward and I’m going to make sure I always come out on top.”

Jackson pointed to that mentality when asked why Golden would have a successful NFL career and live up to the expectations attached to being a first-round draft pick.

“Because he’s built for it,” Jackson said. “Because he’s built for it. I think as a person, he’s mentally strong. He’s able to live on his own and be successful away from football. He takes care of his body, he takes care of his nutrition. He’s out not running the streets. He’s really locked in on ball.

“Now, when you just focus on the ball aspect of things, he’s somebody that wants to be the best version of himself. He was somebody that hated making mistakes. I remember how down he used to get on himself in early fall when he would make mistakes because he didn’t like the other players to see him make mistakes, and I had to just show him, ‘Man, we all make mistakes, man. It’s about how we respond to it.’”

Mistakes will be made in Green Bay, too. It’s part of the process for any rookie, and especially so at receiver. Over the previous decade of drafts, 44 receivers were selected in the first round. Only eight reached 1,000 yards as a rookie, including two out of 11 in 2023 and 2024.

Golden’s conscientious approach will help him overcome the challenges that are ahead, Jackson said.

“That’s what made him better is he hated to make mental mistakes, so I think that goes to show why he worked as hard as he did to pick up this offensive scheme and found a role within it,” Jackson said.

“For him, the more successful he’ll be is because he’s going to learn that offense, Coach LaFleur’s offense, and what his role is in it, whether it’s an X or Z, or whether it’s a slot position, and he’s going to roll with it, and he’ll work. He’ll make mistakes just like everybody else, but he’ll learn from those mistakes and he’ll continue to work.”

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