GREEN BAY, Wis. — If Matt LaFleur gets another question about whether the Green Bay Packers have a true No. 1 receiver, the clean-up crew might have a mess to deal with in the Lambeau Field media auditorium.
“I want to vomit every time I hear ‘No. 1 receiver,’ to be honest with you,” LaFleur said Monday. “It drives me crazy. That’s something that you guys talk about. I feel like we’ve got a bunch of ’em.”
Green Bay’s pecking order at wide receiver has been a question LaFleur has faced often in the aftermath of the March 2022 trade of Davante Adams to the Raiders — and it has, at times, turned into a mildly annoying topic for the sixth-year coach.
The Packers didn’t have a single catch last season by a receiver with more than two years of NFL experience, because they didn’t have such a receiver on the roster. Green Bay still became the youngest team to win a playoff game since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, according to Elias Sports Bureau, and Jordan Love managed to throw for 4,159 yards and 32 touchdowns in his first full season as the starting quarterback.
Then-rookie Jayden Reed led the Packers with 64 catches and 793 yards last season. His eight touchdown catches tied Romeo Doubs for the team lead. Christian Watson had the best yards-per-catch average with 15.1 but was limited to just nine games because of a recurring hamstring injury. Another rookie — Dontayvion Wicks — ranked second to Watson last season with a 14.9-yard average with four touchdowns.
It was Wicks who caught Love’s 65-yard touchdown pass to start Saturday’s preseason opener at Cleveland.
Yet no one from that group was the first to post a 100-yard receiving game last season. That honor belonged to Bo Melton, who wasn’t even on the regular 53-man roster when he did it; he was a game-day elevation from the practice squad for the penultimate game of the regular season when he caught six passes for 105 yards and a touchdown on Dec. 31 against the Vikings.
“They’re all capable of being a ‘No. 1’ in some capacity, and it’s just how do we want to attack somebody and where do we want to put those guys,” LaFleur continued Monday after his “vomit” comment.
“It allows us, I mean, who’s going to get the ball? I don’t know. It could change on a week-to-week basis. We saw it last year, and then we have Bo Melton come in and be our first 100-yard receiver versus Minnesota. So, I think it just — again, it frees us up in terms of just, from an offensive standpoint and how we attack people.”
If there’s a receiver who Love has the kind of connection with that Aaron Rodgers had with Adams (or Jordy Nelson before that), perhaps it’s Doubs. Entering his third season, Doubs is coming off a stellar postseason. In two playoff games, he caught 10 passes for 234 yards and a touchdown, including five for 151 in the Packers’ victory over the Cowboys.
“Eventually, I think it’s going to grow to that,” Packers passing game coordinator Jason Vrable said of having a No. 1 receiver. “Guys are going to come up on their fourth year, their third year or we’re going to have to let a guy go or sign a guy back.
“Typically the No. 1 becomes that when they’ve proven themselves over and over and over again and then they eventually get paid by our building because we believe in them that much to get us to a Super Bowl.
