The Green Bay Packers traded wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks to the Philadelphia Eagles on Friday. The return was just a pair of low, day-three draft picks, a fifth-round pick in this year’s draft and a sixth rounder in 2027. While the draft choices could help the team down the road, the Packers now find themselves without much depth at wide receiver, which was projected to be one of the deeper units on the team prior to this deal.
The original rumors out there were that Packers GM Brian Gutekunst would deal Wicks (or possibly Jayden Reed) in a trade for a player at a position of need like cornerback or defensive tackle. That did not happen. So, for the short term, the Packers weakened the depth at a formerly deep position without immediately fortifying to an area of need. Any player added in the fifth-round of this year’s draft will be unlikely to contribute this season as much as Wicks would have had the Packers kept him.
Now, the Packers have three solid, proven receivers at the top of the depth chart and a lot of questions after that. If injuries hit any of the top three players in the receiver room, the ability of the potential replacements to step in and be productive is uncertain.
The starters will now be Christian Watson and Matthew Golden on the boundary and Reed in the slot. These three are potentially a strong starting trio but there are certainly questions here as well.
Watson has a long injury history and would need to stay healthy for this unit to be effective. When he’s in the lineup, his rare combination of size and speed can not only create mismatches for Watson but can open up space for his teammates by drawing safeties to the area Watson is running to. However, Watson has never played a full season in the NFL without missing games due to injury. He did mature as a receiver in 2025 and if he can stay healthy, has Pro Bowl potential.
The Packers will also be counting on Golden to take a second-year jump. The 2025 first-round pick out of Texas caught 29 passes in his rookie season without establishing himself as an integral part of the Green Bay offense. The trade of Wicks can also be viewed as a vote of confidence in Golden being ready to take on a much bigger role in 2026. He will need to step up and be very productive in his sophomore season with the team.
Reed provides the Packers with strong play in the slot. In 2023 and 2024, he led the Packers in receptions despite playing fewer snaps than many of his teammates. However, in 2025, Reed played in just seven games after suffering a Jones fracture in his foot and a broken collarbone.
If anything happened to the three projected starters, the players behind them would be unproven. The only experienced backups will be Savion Williams, who played just 91 snaps on offense all season in his rookie year, and Bo Melton, who was converted to cornerback last offseason but didn’t play a down on defense all season. Melton did fill in again at receiver when injuries hit the room.
The Packers will now be very likely to add a wide receiver in this year’s draft and possibly on day two (the Packers do not have a first-round pick). Not only does the team need depth in the short-term at the receiver position, but both Watson and Reed are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents next offseason unless Gutekunst signs one or both of them to an extension. If either of them is not re-signed, the Packers will need at least one more starting caliber receiver by 2027. Keep in mind, the Packers don’t have a first-round pick next season either.
Gutekunst has a strong track record of finding quality players on day three of the draft and he will need to do that in order to make this trade pay off for the Packers. For the short term, however, the Packers weakened an area of strength without strengthening an area of weakness.