The Green Bay Packers’ wide receiver group looks different than it has in the past handful of seasons.
Brian Gutekunst drafted six wide receivers between 2022 and 2023 and added two more with premium draft capital in 2025. Coupled with heavy investments at tight end, the passing game had lots of hungry dawgs to feed.
Not all of those pass catchers stuck around long or earned a significant target share. Still, it led to a wide-receiver-by-committee approach and a lot of Green Bay has 80 WR2s conversations.
However, Green Bay shook up the room in the offseason, with a few key departures and extensions. The 2026 version of the passing game will look very different, headlined by Matthew Golden, the recently extended Jayden Reed, and Christian Watson. Couple the newly pared-down room with a new wide receivers coach, and we could see a different approach to target sharing this season.
With a deep room of young, talented, but untested receivers, Matt LaFleur had plenty of time to rotate players, gather intel, and decide what the ideal version of his offense under Jordan Love looks like. LaFleur scoffed at the idea of needing a true WR1. In fairness, though, that’s more of a fantasy football term than a coaching one.
On the one hand, Love didn’t have that veteran star player he could turn to when things looked dicey. A true “bucket getter” who could win in critical moments.
On the other, it meant Love could learn to play within the confines of the offense and trust LaFleur’s scheme. It helped Love get into a rhythm and take the plays he could. It meant teams couldn’t rely on double-teaming one specific player to nullify the offense.
In the final days of Aaron Rodgers, it was common for him to force the ball to Davante Adams, or, to a lesser extent, Allen Lazard. Those plays didn’t always work out, especially in the 2021 playoffs. For better or worse, the roster reconstruction, with Rodgers and Adams gone, led to a new offensive approach as the franchise pivoted into the Love era.
After exploiting those cheap rookie contracts to field a varied group of weapons for years, almost all of Green Bay’s veteran receivers had some change to their situation this offseason once the bill came due.
Romeo Doubs signed with the New England Patriots in free agency, and the Packers traded Dontayvion Wicks to the Philadelphia Eagles. Both receivers, especially Doubs, played hefty amounts of snaps for the Packers.
Meanwhile, they gave Jayden Reed (three-year, $50.25 million) and Christian Watson (four-year, $110.5 million) long-term deals, keeping them in Green Bay for the foreseeable future.
The board is reset, and everyone in the room is entering the summer healthy and ready for bigger roles.
Reed is a shifty playmaker and a lethal weapon, especially in the slot. The offense is better in every way with Watson. Those two will go from rotational players to consistent field presences.
Couple that with former first-rounder Golden positioned to take a second-year leap, and you’ve got your ideal 11-personnel WR group set.
Savion Williams, Bo Melton, and Skyy Moore round out the receiver room. The Packers took Williams in the third round last year. Melton is back in the wide receiver room, and Moore is the return specialist they recently acquired.
New position coach Noah Pauley is the other major change to the room. Before joining Iowa State’s staff, Pauley coached Watson at North Dakota State and is a rising offensive star.
LaFleur is already singing Pauley’s praises, calling him “super impressive.”
Though the season’s end was sour, Green Bay’s passing game was once again an elite group, ranking fourth by DVOA. Other than Pauley, there weren’t many major mix-ups to the offensive coaching staff. But with Pauley in the room and a more defined core group of pass catchers, will the passing game adjust its paradigm?
There’s already a strong desire to see Love throw the ball more. By every metric, he’s a top-tier quarterback. Still, a lack of volume stats hurts his national perception, and the running game has several questions in play this summer.
While LaFleur opened OTAs with Williams and Melton as the “starting” wide receivers, it feels like we’ll see a blend between the late-Rodgers and early-Love era styles. We won’t see the quarterback forcing the ball to one or two targets, but we probably won’t see 11 targeted pass-catchers either. Expect a more balanced approach reminiscent of the early LaFleur days.
That means that from week to week, it may still be a different receiver who is The Guy. Watson might have a big week, while Reed or Golden receives the lion’s share of targets the following week. But each of the main three’s average target share will increase.
We’ll see how the offensive share looks throughout the summer. Still, if the Packers don’t play their top guys much in the preseason or there are injuries, we might not see the big picture for a bit yet. But with a reduced number of targets to keep happy and a new wide receiver coach in the room, a shift in approach looks like a reasonable expectation.
