In one of the most memorable moments of the 2025 NFL Draft, the Green Bay Packers went big at the receiver position. Amidst a lot of uncertainty about their young talent in the room, which has been exacerbated by Christian Watson‘s long-term injury and a clear inability to win one-on-one matchups in the playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, general manager Brian Gutekunst opted to put the team’s wideout need at the top of the list.
In doing so, he electrified the home crowd by selecting Matthew Golden as the team’s first Day 1 receiver since Javon Baker in 2002. However, according to a recent report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter, at least one person seems to have been far less electrified.
The additions of Golden and TCU product Savion Williams further cloud a depth chart that has lacked a clear hierarchy amongst Watson, Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed, and, to a lesser extent, Dontayvion Wicks. Of those players, Reed is the clear favorite to earn a second contract. He has been a dynamic, versatile weapon for Matt LaFleur. His utility has ranged from catching touchdown bombs in Brazil to giving the Malik Willis offense a lateral threat in Jordan Love‘s absence, and everywhere in between.
Special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia has also gotten use out of him in the punt return game. It’s safe to say his touches and overall usage are the most secure of all returning wideouts. However, Reed and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, reportedly felt unsure. According to Schefter, Rosenhaus met with Gutekunst after the draft to “clarify” Reed’s status in Green Bay. The team said the new additions “will not affect Reed’s status as its top receiver.”
The bizarre report caused some confusion. To say the least, nobody in Green Bay or its fanbase anxiously awaited a resolution to what was generally viewed as a non-issue. Prominent voices in Wisconsin radio and on Packers Twitter began decrying Reed and the rest of the young receiving group as divas, also referencing Doubs’ one-game suspension for skipping practice and Wicks’ response to Josh Jacobs’ comments about needing a top receiver.
A group that has generally been perceived as collaborative and unproblematic is suddenly being cast in the same negative light often applied to wide receivers at large: When they’re not getting the ball, they’re constantly whining about it.
LaFleur has taken a lot of questions about the hierarchy of the receiving room and who he expects to take the next step forward. He expressed his opinion on the matter in August and has maintained the same position since then:
I want to vomit every time I hear ‘No. 1 receiver’ to be honest with you. It drives me crazy. That’s something that you guys talk about. I feel like we’ve got a bunch of them. I think the beauty of them is they’re all capable of doing many things, which gives us a lot of versatility from an offensive perspective.
It’s a credit to LaFleur’s leadership and messaging on this topic that things have remained stable for as long as they have. Things actually still seem fine, despite Schefter’s curious report.
Schefter tried to clear the air in a recent radio appearance. While his initial report suggested some discontent from Reed and his camp, he said plainly that “people are reading way too much into it.” He explained that Reed recently changed agents, and the new representation was seeking clarity on how the new personnel would affect things. It wasn’t a big deal, nor was it viewed as a problem on either side; it was just a relatively routine discussion.
Schefter expressed surprise that the conversation had strayed so far from the simplicity of what he was trying to report. While he’s somewhat complicit for framing it as a relevant scoop, his clarification paints a clear picture:
There’s nothing to see here.
Heading into 2025, Reed’s status in Green Bay is a non-issue. He and Golden, who profiles more as an X receiver, should complement each other nicely, creating a bigger pie rather than fighting for each other’s slices. This is much to do about nothing unless we hear something more concrete. Schefter might have known what he was doing in framing the scoop as more than it was, but whatever the case, all indications are that everything is fine. The Internet should find something else to focus on for now.