Paul Bretl | 10/5/2024
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The overall numbers through four games may not suggest it, but Packers second-year wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks is on the cusp of some potentially big performances.
“Definitely a problem for defenses, for sure,” said Adam Stenavich. “And if you look at his production his last eight games or something like that, he’s had seven touchdowns. So he’s getting that production. But he catches those balls, it might be crazy. You know what I mean? We just have to get him to that point and we’ll have some fun.”
That point that Stenavich mentions and what the Packers and Wicks want to arrive at lies in his consistency as a pass catcher. In the first four weeks, Wicks has been targeted 22 times but has caught just eight of those passes. In part, as Jordan Love shook off the rust last week, there were off-target throws for Wicks to contend with. However, Wicks also has a drop rate of 27.3 percent, according to PFF, the second-highest mark among all receivers.
During Wicks’ final season at Virginia, he dealt with drops that season as well, totaling nine in the nine games that he played, per PFF. However, that wasn’t going to stop the Packers from drafting him because, as now passing game coordinator Jason Vrable described last spring, a lot of those drops were the product of Wicks trying to turn and make a play before he caught it. A relatively simple fix that requires going back to the fundamentals. The drops Wicks has had this season seem to be of a similar ilk.
“I had some drops. I had some good catches,” said Wicks of his performance against the Vikings.” I try to critique myself on those bad plays and see what was the reason of them. It’s really nothing, for real. Drops really just taking my eyes off the ball before I finish the catch. That’s really it. It’s really nothing I need to change, stay the same, keep the same routine. Just be me.”
Yet despite the early ups and downs, Wicks remains a big part of the Packers passing game, with quarterback Jordan Love continuing to go back to him. Wicks’ 22 targets this season are tied for the most on the team with Jayden Reed. Even this past Sunday against Minnesota, Love kept looking in Wicks’ direction, targeting him 13 times. In all of football, only three receivers had more targets in Week 4.
“I think he’s very resilient,” said Love on Wednesday. “I think he has that mindset that he wants the ball and if he makes a mistake early on, I think he’s gonna be hard on himself about it and find a way to fix it and keep going, but I think that’s everybody on this team. Nobody’s gonna give up or have the game kinda be defeated after having one bad play. I think we all gotta be able to bounce back and respond.”
One of the big reasons that Wicks may be on the cusp of some huge performances and why the team remains confident in him is in his ability to get open. Wicks came to the NFL as an already fairly refined route runner with a release package at the line of scrimmage that can put most cornerbacks in a bind.
PFF has a metric called separation percentage, which tracks how often a receiver gets open by beating the coverage rather than benefitting from how the defense defends the play. So far this season, no receiver has won their routes more often than Wicks, who has gotten himself open on a whopping 82.14 percent of his routes.
“I don’t look at any of that PFF stuff,” Stenavich said, “but that doesn’t surprise me with just the way he runs routes, his ability to double people up, his ability to get out of cuts with speed, he’s a threat. He’s an excellent route-runner. And he’s shown that so far for sure.”
Week-to-week with the talent that the Packers have in the wide receiver room, we never quite know how the targets in the passing game will be distributed. However, this week against the Los Angeles Rams, it looks like the Packers will be without Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs, both of whom are listed as doubtful, which means more potential opportunities for Wicks, as well as Jayden Reed, Malik Heath, and Bo Melton.
This is also a Rams defense that is surrendering a hefty 8.6 yards per pass attempt this season, which ranks last in the NFL through four weeks. The Rams have also given up 15 passing plays of at least 20 yards–the fourth-most in football–and eight passing plays of at least 30 yards, which is tied for the most.
The drops certainly can’t be overlooked and do need to be corrected, but in the grand scheme of what can be a long NFL season, they seem to be more of a blip on the radar for Wicks than a worrisome trend. Once that’s taken care of, sparked by Wicks’ ability to create separation, the recipe for some big-time production very much exists.
“Again, with the way the game was going, and he had a couple of drops, and I’ll tell you what, there’s not one guy that has better hands than Wicks,” added Stenavich. “So I think he expects himself obviously to make those plays, as we all do with him. But yeah, it’s just something he’s got to work through and I have all the confidence in the world that he’ll make those plays when they come up again, because he has usually got some pretty good hands.”