The youth movement is a prominent aspect of the Green Bay Packers‘ offense this season. For example, the tight end group is extremely young. The team drafted Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft with top-100 picks. The keepers from last year’s team are h-back Josiah Deguara and Tyler Davis, who has mostly been a special teamer.
Because of the lack of experience in the room, many fans want the Packers to re-sign Marcedes Lewis. And while the decision would have its merits, it’s not what Green Bay needs at this moment.
Lewis was still a solid player last season. He had a 65.6 PFF grade, good for the highest among the Packers’ tight ends. His blocking ability and leadership qualities are the big arguments to re-sign the veteran, who played in Green Bay from 2018 to 2022.
But there are also plenty of reasons to move in another direction.
The biggest one is that Lewis was basically non-existent as a pass catcher. Even playing 41% of the offensive snaps last year, he had a 1.4% target share and 10.4% route participation. He had only one deep target last season, finishing the year with 1.18 yards per route run. By comparison, Robert Tonyan had 58.4% of route participation and 1.43 yards per route run, even in what was still considered a relatively inefficient season.
Lewis finished two of his five seasons in Green Bay with less than 100 receiving yards for an entire year. In 2022, he had six receptions for 66 yards and two touchdowns. Do you want to understand how small his role in the passing offense was? He had fewer targets than Amari Rodgers.
With Musgrave and Kraft, the Packers expect the tight ends will be a bigger part of the puzzle, so there is no great reason to hold them back.
Lewis offers something as a blocker, but there are two reasons that matters less this year. The first and most important is that the tight end position in particular requires reps for the young players to learn and maximize their roles. Musgrave is not a good blocker, and Kraft has more potential in this area. However, Musgrave and Kraft need to execute these kinds of plays to get better. It’s a learning curve the Packers might struggle with for a bit, but it’s an important part of the development of a young unit, despite the growing pains.
“There’s no substitute for doing,” said Packers tight ends coach John Dunn. “We can teach them, they’re in the classroom, they do a great job learning, they’re smart guys. But what we’re going through now and what we’ll go through in training camp is the ultimate teacher.”
The second point is that Lewis’ importance as a blocker is limited because he didn’t offer anything as a receiver — except for one-yard goal-line plays and one nice catch he had against the Miami Dolphins. If the Packers just want an extra blocker, they could simply use a six-offensive-lineman formation like the Detroit Lions did several times. Yosh Nijman, who’s projected to be the swing tackle, could take over this role.
Furthermore, Musgrave is expected to be the starter. When talking about tight ends, it’s particularly important that a backup could also help on special teams. Last season, though, Lewis played only 15% of the special teams snaps. Comparatively, the other backup tight ends, Tyler Davis and Josiah Deguara had 80.8% and 46.7%, respectively.
The final point is about leadership. Lewis has been a respected voice and a positive influence in the locker room. However, the roster refresh is also an opportunity to establish new leaders off the field in addition to what they do on the turf. It’s still yet to be determined who these leaders will be, but it’s a unique chance for the young players to take on more responsibility.
“They have to get out there and they have to do it,” Dunn added. “They have to do it under pressure. They have to do it full speed. There’s going to be mistakes, right? A lot of learning is through failure, so there’s no substitute for that. I wish there was a magic, ‘Hey, this will get you there faster.’ But the greatest part about sport is it really is a process.”
Marcedes Lewis was an important piece of the Packers’ roster and culture for five seasons, but it’s time for the team to move forward. If a player can’t be expected to be on the team in 2024 and 2025, there’s little reason for him to be there in 2023.
