FOOTBALL GREEN BAY — To be accurate, the point of the question was supposed to be about Dontayvion Wicks, whose 65-yard touchdown catch in Saturday's preseason opener had given the Green Bay Packers' starting offense the rest of the afternoon off after just three plays from scrimmage. But the inquiry was prefaced by a reference to the seemingly constant offseason talk about the unique dynamic of the Packers' wide receiver group, where none of their young-but-talented pass catchers could rightly claim the No. 1 spot atop the depth chart in a given week.
And once coach Matt LaFleur heard that phrase — "No. 1 receiver" — well, the conversation turned. Quickly.
"I want to vomit every time I hear 'No. 1 receiver,' to be honest with you," LaFleur said Monday, two days after his team's 23-10 win over the Cleveland Browns. "It drives me crazy.
That's something that you guys talk about." "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." Matt LaFleur, green Bay Packers coach The topic certainly has been talked about a lot, both as the offseason program was beginning and after the offseason had come to an end.
And with good reason. The Packers' top four wideouts — Romeo Doubs, Christian Watson, Jayden Reed and Wicks — are all among the NFL's most gifted up-and-coming young receivers. From game to game, there's no way of knowing which one will be quarterback Jordan Love's top target.
Reed finished his rookie year as the Packers' leader in receptions (64) and receiving yards (793) and tied with Doubs for most touchdown receptions (eight). Doubs was far and away the team's most productive receiver in the playoffs, catching a team-high 10 passes for a team-best 234 yards and a touchdown on 12 targets. He also was the team's best red-zone receiver, leading the team in red-zone targets (18), tying Reed for most receptions (nine) and recording the most inside-the-20 touchdown catches (seven).
Wicks came on strong late in the year, with 29 of his 39 receptions coming in the final 10 games he played. He showed a big-play knack, too, with a 14.9-yard average per catch and four touchdowns.
And Watson averaged a team-best 15.1 yards per catch and delivered five TDs despite missing eight games with hamstring problems. "I feel like we've got a bunch of 'em," LaFleur said of No.
1 receivers. "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 in terms of how we use these guys and deploy their talents. "I think, especially those top four guys, 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? "Who's going to get the ball? I don't know. It could change on a week-to-week basis.
(But) it frees us up from an offensive standpoint and how we attack people." Wicks' touchdown catch — the play that led to Monday's whole unexpected back-and-forth about No. 1 receivers — was a prime example.
The Packers lined up with three wide receivers (Doubs, Reed and Wicks), one tight end (Luke Musgrave) and one running back (Josh Jacobs) on the play. Doubs lined up to the left, Jacobs in the backfield, and the other three to the right — Reed in the slot, and Wicks between him and Musgrave, who was split wide to the right. With Reed running an in-breaking route across the middle and Musgrave on a short route in the right flat near the sideline, it led to a mismatch that left Browns safety Ronnie Hickman in coverage against Wicks, who cooked him off the line of scrimmage and was wide open to reel in Love's on-target throw.
"I saw the coverage, and I knew it was 'man.' I just knew I had to get on his toes and win (off the line) and J-Love was going to give me a chance," Wicks said. "That was it.
" With so much talent and Love taking a similar spread-it-around approach to the one his predecessor, Aaron Rodgers, used to when he was plied with lots of pass catchers — Rodgers was fond of saying that his favorite receiver was "the one who's open" early in his time as the starter — there's no doubt that in the short term, the any-given-Sunday approach to identifying the top target is a huge positive. "The good thing is when you have a lot of weapons, you can be pretty creative, and you can change it up a lot and still have all kinds of guys getting the ball," offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said. "I think the thing that we were successful with last year was we really didn't force the ball to anybody.
We kind of just let it happen, and everyone gets their touches and it kind of evens out. "That's the one thing that's nice about what we have, is you really don't have to say, 'All right, this play has to go to this guy.' You just let the play develop and Jordan can read it out.
Whoever's open can get the ball." Left unsaid, by both LaFleur and Stenavich, is that sooner or later, the Kumbaya vibes at a position where ego is undeniably at play — not to mention the fiscal realities of the salary cap not allowing the Packers to re-sign them all — will dissipate. While it may not become acrimonious, it is unsustainable.
"Eventually, I think it's going to grow to that," longtime wide receivers coach Jason Vrable, now the offensive passing-game coordinator, said of a true No. 1 emerging. "Guys are going to come up on their fourth year (and the team is) going to have to let a guy go or sign a guy back (before hitting free agency).
"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. That's why you do it.
"So, for our guys, they're still learning and growing. Through your experiences, you mold (yourself) and you become that to the point where you're almost unguardable." Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
