If you haven’t noticed, the Green Bay Packers have invested in speed at the wide receiver position over the last several years. Although Matt LaFleur has gained a reputation for preferring big-bodied wide receivers who can block, the team has moved on from a few of those players this offseason and those who are left are virtually all burners, regardless of body composition.
With the team expected to start a trio of Christian Watson, Matthew Golden, and Jayden Reed, I got to thinking: is the Packers’ receiver room the fastest in the NFL?
So I set out to answer that question. First, I had to decide on a methodology, however. The simplest and most accessible way to assess a player’s pure speed is by looking at the 40-yard dash time that a player clocked at his Scouting Combine or Pro Day. That’s easy enough to look up, at least in most cases — though for players who were injured or chose not to run the 40, I had to use projected 40 times from Draftscout.com. Still, those examples are few and far between.
Then there is the matter of projecting who will actually be on NFL rosters in the fall. This is a bit clunky, but I settled on taking the top six wideouts for each team, as listed on their depth charts on ESPN.com. Surely that won’t be how it works out come week 1, but it’s as good a projection as any at this point in the offseason.
After looking up 192 wideouts’ 40 times and averaging the times for each team’s top six receivers, the Packers came in second in the entire NFL with an average time of 4.388 seconds — just 0.005 seconds behind the fastest group. For their part, every one of the Packers’ top six receivers ran under 4.5 seconds at their respective Combines, with only one player running slower than 4.45:
* Matthew Golden: 4.29
* Bo Melton: 4.34
* Christian Watson: 4.36
* Skyy Moore: 4.41
* Jayden Reed: 4.45
* Savion Williams: 4.48
The team that comes in just a hair ahead of the Packers is a surprising one: it’s their divisional rivals, the Chicago Bears. Their top two receivers ran perfectly respectable 40s, with Rome Odunze clocking 4.45 seconds and Luther Burden III coming in at 4.41. However, the Bears get a huge boost from some 2026 offseason acquisitions, three of whom ran sub-4.4. Those players are Kalif Raymond (4.39), Scotty Miller (4.39), and rookie Zavion Thomas (4.28, who posted the 3rd-fastest time at the 2026 Combine). Thomas’ addition in particular shrinks the Bears’ average time compared to the group of players on the roster to finish the 2025 season, though that group still had a solid 4.432 time that would put them 10th in the current list.
Perhaps most impressively, Green Bay and Chicago are the only two teams to average a sub-4.4 40 across their top six wideouts. Most of the league falls between 4.4 and 4.5, with just five teams having a group that has an average above 4.5.
Interestingly, the slowest group belongs to the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, though their numbers are dragged down by Jake Bobo’s truly abysmal 4.99-second 40 at his Pro Day. He reportedly ran that time into a headwind and in the rain, and it’s rather surprising that he actually ran it at all. Removing that outlier puts Seattle right in the middle of the pack at 16th instead.
In any case, the Packers’ offense seems set up to continue throwing the deep ball with regularity, something that they have been more than willing to do with Jordan Love at quarterback. In each of his three seasons as a starter, Love has finished in the top 10 in yards per completion and he ranks 7th among all active quarterbacks. Furthermore, he has ranked 5th or 6th in average depth of target in each of the last three years.
Expect the Packers to continue leaning into the deep ball in 2026, especially due to the speed that they have accumulated among their receiver group.
Here are the full rankings for all 32 NFL teams’ wide receiver units:
Rank
Team
Average 40 Time
1
Chicago Bears
4.383
2
Green Bay Packers
4.388
3
Los Angeles Chargers
4.407
4
New Orleans Saints
4.413
5
Kansas City Chiefs
4.417
6
New York Giants
4.423
7
Washington Commanders
4.427
8
Las Vegas Raiders
4.427
9
Indianapolis Colts
4.427
10
New York Jets
4.433
11
Dallas Cowboys
4.443
12
Baltimore Ravens
4.448
13
Miami Dolphins
4.452
14
Tennessee Titans
4.455
15
San Francisco 49ers
4.455
16
Carolina Panthers
4.460
17
Houston Texans
4.462
18
Pittsburgh Steelers
4.463
19
Philadelphia Eagles
4.467
20
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
4.467
21
Atlanta Falcons
4.470
22
Cleveland Browns
4.470
23
New England Patriots
4.472
24
Detroit Lions
4.477
25
Jacksonville Jaguars
4.480
26
Cincinnati Bengals
4.480
27
Buffalo Bills
4.495
28
Arizona Cardinals
4.502
29
Denver Broncos
4.508
30
Minnesota Vikings
4.520
31
Los Angeles Rams
4.525
32
Seattle Seahawks
4.542
See More:
* [By the Numbers](/by-the-numbers)
* [Green Bay Packers Analysis](/green-bay-packers-analysis)