As the Green Bay Packers head into their Week 10 bye and fans enjoy a (mostly) stress-free weekend of football, I’m pondering a question the Packers must be asking themselves during their week off.
Is it time to scale back Dontayvion Wicks’ role on offense?
I want to start by saying I’m a huge fan of Wicks. He’s been a steal of a fifth-round pick, and I’m not advocating for the Packers to wildly reduce his snaps or for them to bench him entirely. However, it could benefit the team to consider adjusting his role until he can get his drops under control. The bye week is the perfect time to explore that possibility.
The 2024 season hasn’t gone how the Packers, fans, or Wicks anticipated for the second-year receiver out of Virginia. He had a breakout rookie season last year, finishing with 39 catches for 581 yards and four touchdowns. He was arguably Green Bay’s most effective receiver at times, drawing comparisons to Davante Adams for his footwork, route running, and ability to create separation. It’s not often that people around the league take notice of a fifth-round rookie receiver, but Wicks had people talking.
However, he’s had issues with drops this year and hasn’t produced. Through nine games this season, Wicks has been targeted 43 times but has managed only 16 catches. These numbers aren’t just concerning, they’re historically poor. According to Stathead, 1,050 receivers have been targeted at least 40 times a season, and Wicks’ catch rate of 37.2% ranks 1,045th. Furthermore, among the 72 receivers targeted at least 30 times this season, Wicks ranks dead last in catch and drop percentages.
As if those figures weren’t enough to indicate a potential change is needed, Pro Football Focus (PFF) ranks Wicks last among 53 qualified wide receivers, with a 0% contested catch rate on nine contested targets. Yes, you read that correctly: 0%. When a reporter told Matt LaFleur about this statistic, he responded, “Well, we’ve got something to work on, I guess.”
Wicks’ issue isn’t his ability to get open or run the correct routes; he’s elite in those areas. PFF lists Wicks as the leading NFL receiver with at least 25 targets in separation percentage, at 82.14%. He knows how to get open, and he does so often.
It seems Wicks’ struggles are more mental than physical. The dreaded “sophomore slump” is a real phenomenon that athletes in many sports experience. Look no further than Davante Adams in 2015, when fans called for the Packers to cut him after a poor second season and what seemed like a regression in his development.
That brings us to this week’s bye. The bye week is a great time for teams to “self-scout,” as LaFleur calls it, to identify areas for improvement on both sides of the ball. If the Packers will experiment with the wide receiver rotation and develop different packages for players further down the depth chart, now is the time to do it.
Bo Melton has proven capable of a larger role on offense with his breakout performance over the last three weeks of last season when he recorded 15 receptions for 211 yards and a touchdown. Thirteen of those receptions resulted in first downs. Melton may not be as large a target as Wicks, but he brings more speed. Getting Melton, Christian Watson, and Jayden Reed on the field together more often could open up the playbook, allowing for big plays and personnel mismatches for LaFleur to exploit.
Malik Heath also sits at the bottom of the depth chart. While he hasn’t contributed much in the receiving game, he’s an excellent blocker. With Josh Jacobs hitting his stride in LaFleur’s offense and Jordan Love likely still nursing some injuries, perhaps the Packers could lean on a more run-heavy approach in the second half of the season. They should put the best blocking receiver on the field more often. Melton and Heath’s combined offensive snap count (37%) is well below Wicks’ (48%), and Wicks’ production doesn’t currently justify that discrepancy.
We should also consider the likely return of rookie running back MarShawn Lloyd. His return to the field seems imminent, and he could fill the roster spot left by the recently departed Preston Smith. It’s reasonable to think Green Bay will want to get their third-round rookie on the field after having played more than half the season without him.
The team has two other reserve backs, Chris Brooks and Emanuel Wilson, who have seen various levels of playing time. It appears the team will go forward with four running backs on the roster. We may even see some two-running-back sets, with one back running a route out of the backfield while the other stays in to block or with one motioning out wide, similar to how the team used Aaron Jones. All of these backs are capable receivers, which gives LaFleur many options.
The Packers possess one of the deepest and most talented groups of skill players in the NFL – and also one of the youngest. There are several different mouths to feed across multiple position groups, which gives the team flexibility to scale back the role of a struggling player — like, for instance, Dontayvion Wicks — while he works through his issues.
Green Bay has faith in Wicks to right the ship, get his second year back on track, and return to the form he showed last season. Still, sometimes a team has to help a player along the way and let him reset. The Packers need to use the bye week as a chance to cut back on Wicks’ snaps, ease up on his workload, and regroup. The Packers cannot afford to keep trotting out a player for half of the offensive snaps if he’s unreliable as a target, especially if they want to compete with the top teams in the NFC.
