Packers 2025 offseason position preview: Does Green Bay need a No. 1 wide receiver?

Paul Bretl | 2/6/2025

GREEN BAY, Wis. — In the coming weeks we will be taking a position-by-position look at the Packers roster with our lens focused on what’s ahead and what’s needed at each position group.

Up next are the running backs. If you missed any of the previous previews, follow the link below.

Quarterback
Running back
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Do the Packers need a No. 1 wide receiver?

Whether or not the Packers needed a true No. 1 wide receiver was already a question contemplated by many in the early going of this offseason. And among those taking part in the conversation is running back Josh Jacobs.

“I love the guys that we have in the receiving room,” Jacobs said on radio row at the Super Bowl on 97.3 The Game. “They all have the potential to be [a No.] 1. But we need a guy that’s proven to be [a No.] 1.”

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In games against the NFC’s top opponents and in the final three games of the season, including the Packers’ playoff matchup with Philadelphia, the Green Bay passing game struggled to find any sort of consistency. In that three game stretch to close out the season, Jordan Love ranked 28th in completion rate, 31sst in yards per pass attempt and he threw just one touchdown to three interceptions.

As Matt LaFleur will often point out, when things go well, the quarterback will get more credit than deserved and when things are going poorly, he gets more blame than is deserved. Examples of this include the Packers’ playoff loss to the Eagles. While everyone on the outside saw Love throwing interceptions, LaFleur saw his receivers not running their routes with the proper detail that’s needed.

On the interception by Darius Slay, LaFleur noted that the receiver needed to do a better job of stacking the defender to help create a more open throwing window. On the interception over the middle by linebacker Zach Baun, the receiver was supposed to break in at 20 yards from the line of scrimmage but instead did so at 15 yards, throwing off the entire play design.

These are just two examples–but big examples in a crucial game–of things that went awry over a long NFL season. But, to a degree, this performance also seemed to be a microcosm of what we saw from the receiver position on and off during the year.

Along with the routes not always being quite right, dropped passes were a major issue as well. According to Pro Football Reference, the Packers had the third-most dropped passes and the second-highest dropped pass rate in 2024. Then after the Minnesota game in Week 17, LaFleur mentioned the offense’s inability to win their one-on-one matchups against the Vikings’ man coverage-heavy secondary.

In order for the Packers to get over the hump and be a true Super Bowl contender, all of that has to get cleaned up this offseason.

“I know the term No. 1 receiver gets thrown around a lot and I think that just depends what that means to you,” said Brian Gutekunst during his end of season press conference. “But I’d like our football team to get to a point where we can win in situational football better than we have right now and I think for us to do that, that group’s going to have to take some steps and I think they will. They’re on the right track.”

The strength of this Packers receiver room can be in its numbers. Having a wide variety of skill sets that teams have to defend and with how Love spreads the ball around, that also forces defenses to defend the entire field, which can create more spacing to exploit.

But, having said that, do the Packers need one of those players to elevate above the rest and be the go-to target, particularly in those key situations?

“I think we have some of those guys and I think we don’t have just one,” Gutekunst said, “but I think historically if you look at a lot of the teams, very rarely do teams that have one receiver that’s super heavy with targets, that doesn’t usually play out well for playoffs and success there.”

As Brian Gutekunst said, the Packers believe that they have some true No. 1 targets already on the roster. But in order for one of those players to potentially emerge and be that go-to target, the opportunity needs to be there as well.

The game-plans each week built out by LaFleur and the coaching staff tend to feature a different player depending on the opponent and the situations the offense runs into during the game. That versatility can be great, and as described above, can be a real stressor at times for opposing defenses. But perhaps it can also be more difficult for young players to take that next step when targets and snaps can be inconsistent. There are instances where defined roles can be valuable.

“I think all those guys grew individually in different ways,” said Gutekunst about the receivers. “It was interesting, I thought as we went through the season, guys took on different roles. Nobody really established, like their own roles, so to speak. I think every guy kind of took some turns. So we’ll kind of see how that develops through the offseason and into next season. But I thought they did some really, really good things with Jordan.”

The issues that we saw on offense by the Packers certainly doesn’t only fall on the receiver position. It was on everyone, including LaFleur, Love, and the offensive line.

However, as Gutekunst said during his season ending press conference, the time to compete for championships is now. And in theory, having a deep receiver room with several players that, internally, the Packers believe can be go-to targets comes with quite a bit of value. But there is still development needed to get to that point, and while many thought we would see that take place in Year 2, for the most part, it didn’t.

So I guess the Packers’ big question is, with the urgency needing to be ramped up, do they have the patience to bank on one or two of those pass-catchers making that massive stride in 2025? Remember, hope is not a plan.

“I think we’re certainly looking for these guys that we have currently to take a step into that role where they are more consistent on the down-down basis,” added Gutekunst. “Certainly if there’s somebody outside of our building, whether it’s the draft, free agency, that makes some sense for us, we’ll certainly look to do that, but we’re also looking for these guys to continue to grow and hopefully grow into that space.”

Positional need this offseason

I guess it depends on who you ask. Given the inconsistency from last season, the Packers should absolutely explore adding a receiver to the mix. And the need at the position is two-fold.

In one respect, the thing to be mindful of here is that I don’t think that signing a mid-level free agent or spending a middle-round pick on the position accomplishes what is needed. The Packers have depth and they have talent. What they need is that true top target to help elevate the entire unit. To a degree, adding a receiver feels like a go big or go home scenario because adding another developmental talent probably doesn’t do the trick–at least not for at team with Super Bowl aspirations.

In addition to that, Christian Watson is likely to miss a decent portion of the 2025 season. Without him, the Packers have to find another vertical threat for this offense. When that element isn’t present, moving the ball through the air and even on the ground becomes much more difficult.

If defenses don’t respect the deep ball, they play closer to the line of scrimmage, which limits the amount of space to attack on short to intermediate routes and over the middle. With more players near the ball, that can also impact the run game as well.

“It’s a big-time loss just his presence on the field alone, he’s so versatile in his ability to play multiple positions,” said LaFleur of Watson. “You can put him at the X, the F, the Z. You can move him all over the place. Obviously he’s got an element in terms of his size and speed that’s tough replicate. There’s not many built like him around the league.”

Salary cap outlook

On paper–and Gutekunst agrees–the Packers are in a good position with the salary cap this offseason. With a large number of players still on inexpensive rookie deals, Green Bay currently has $42.14 million in available cap space, according to Over the Cap, which in terms of spending power, ranks as the 13th-most among the NFL.

“I feel really good,” said Gutekunst about the Packers’ salary cap situation. “Russ (Ball) does a fantastic job with our cap and all the decisions we’ve made over the past few years has put us in the situation where we’re in pretty good shape right now. Again, we’ve got to keep making good decisions, and it’s never a one-year thing. You’re looking at two, three years down the road as far as how these things impact things.

“We have a lot of good players that are under rookie contracts right now, and we’ve got to make sure we’re able to extend those guys when that time comes, but I feel really good our ability to go do what we need to do to field a championship-level team.”

There are also ways to create more cap room if needed through a veteran roster cut or trade. In this instance, if a player’s cap hit–what’s on the salary cap books that season if the player is on the roster–is greater than their dead cap hit–which is money that’s already been paid to the player but hasn’t yet counted towards the salary cap and remains on the books even if that player is on a new team–then there will be cap space gained by the team if they moved on from that player.

Another avenue to create cap space is through a restructure–which we saw the Packers utilize heavily during the 2021 and 2022 offseasons. In short, this is kicking the salary cap can down the road by taking cap charges from the current year, such as a portion of a player’s base salary, and converting it to a signing bonus so the cap hit can be pro-rated over the remaining life of the contract.

The benefit in the moment is that it creates cap space now. However, the downside is that the player’s cap hit in future seasons is now inflated. If the Packers have to go down this path to improve the roster, Gutekunst is willing to do so, but he prefers to operate from the team’s current cap position now that they no longer have the salary cam impact of those past restructures on the books.

“I feel really good where we’re at right now, would love to stay in that kind of flexibility year to year,” said Gutekunst. “We’ll certainly try to do that, but at the same time if we kinda have to do some different things because we have an opportunity to acquire a player that can impact our team like these two guys did, we’ll do it.”

Free agents available

If the Packers are going to explore free agency, here are some of the top options via Over the Cap:

Tee Higgins
Stefon Diggs
Darius Slayton
Elijah More
Keenan Allen
Nick Westbrook-Ikhine
Mack Hollins
Tyler Boyd
Amari Cooper
DeAndre Hopkins
Mike Williams
Brandin Cooks
Robert Woods
JuJu Smith-Schuster
Tutu Atwell
Lil-Jordan Humphrey
Josh Palmer

What about the NFL draft?

Including the compensatory pick that the Packers are projected to receive from Yosh Nijman signing elsewhere in free agency last offseason, Green Bay should have eight picks in total, including three in the first three rounds. An early round pick or a deep threat–which they can get beyond the early rounds–should be on the Packers’ radar.

Here are the top receivers in this year’s draft via PFF’s big board:

Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona
Luther Burden, Missouri
Emeka Egbuka, Ohio State
Matthew Golden, Texas
Elic Ayomanor, Stanford
Savion Williams, TCU
Xavier Restrepo, Miami
Jayden Higgins, Iowa State
Jack Bech, TCU
Jalen Royals, Utah State
Isaiah Bond, Texas
Tez Johnson, Oregon
Tre Harris, Ole Miss
Nick Nash, San Jose State
Jaylin Noel, Iowa State

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