Will Matt LaFleur use his smaller wide receivers?

NFC Wild Card Playoffs: Green Bay Packers v Philadelphia Eagles — Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images

One of the popular topics at the Green Bay Packers’ 2025 Training Camp has involved “getting Jayden Reed and Matthew Golden on the field at the same time.” I have no doubt that Matt LaFleur, who is something of a play design genius, can, in theory, design a game’s worth of plays to get Golden and Reed on the field at the same time. They would probably be super-awesome plays. However, the reason for the question, and the root of the problem, isn’t that LaFleur can’t do this, but that he almost certainly

won’t do this.

And this may end up being a problem. It’s actually one of the things that lurks in the back of my mind as “a reason that the Packers might be worse than they should be.” Reed played primarily outside in college, and he was just as dynamic then with the ball in his hands as he is now, but he struggled with his catch radius and had a relatively low catch percentage compared to his larger outside peers. Now, in the NFL, he plays more than three quarters of his snaps in the slot.

Matthew Golden also played mostly outside at Texas (76.1% of the time in his final season) and was every bit as dynamic as Reed. However, Golden was clearly better overall, especially with his catch radius and his hands in general. Some will rush to explain the difference as a reflection of Payton Thorne, then at Michigan State, versus Quinn Ewers at Texas, and having watched a lot of both, I would only concede that they are both terrible in their own unique ways.

Anyway, Golden was distinct from Reed in actually catching an incredibly high percentage of his often terribly thrown targets, including over 60% of his contested catches. I would love to tell you how many contested catches Jayden Reed had, but PFF is currently only displaying the 2022 stats for Notre Dame, Army, UConn, and UMass, because it’s the offseason for everyone.

Anyway, the good news is that while Reed is probably fairly limited to playing in the slot, Golden likely can play outside. He may be small like Reed, but he plays bigger, has better hands, and just looks more along the lines of how good small-outside guys look. And so, it should not be hard to get both players on the field, and even though I spent a few paragraphs kind of ripping Reed, I absolutely do want him on the field. He has been the teams’ most productive receiver since he was drafted, and even if he’s limited a bit in the role he can play, he’s undeniably very dangerous.

But unfortunately, Matthew Golden is tiny, a fact not helped by the enormous helmet he’s been sporting.

Here at APC headquarters, we sometimes privately refer to Matt LaFleur as a “size queen,” especially when it comes to receivers. Now, we get it, and when push comes to shove, we, too, prefer bigger receivers, and would certainly never kink-shame anyone, but you could certainly take things too far, and I think Matt will, because Matt loves to run. And because he likes to run, he also loves his outside receivers to block. It’s why Malik Heath is on the team, and probably why Savion Williams was drafted. Heck, if anything, Williams is probably even more of a threat to Reed as a “big slot” (That’s slot, you filthy people. Slot.) who can run gadget routes, and maul linebackers.

And blocking is great, and running the ball is great, but the 2024 Packers ran the ball WAY too much. Don’t get me wrong, Josh Jacobs is an asset to the offense, and they have some new beef upfront this year, and I suspect the run game will be incredibly effective, but passing is just, well, better. It’s much more efficient, and taking Golden and Reed off the field just so you can run block better is just shooting yourself in the foot.

LaFleur LOVES the run game though and hates to forfeit the potential run on any given option/check play, so I suspect we’ll continue to see a good amount of 12/21 personnel (meaning only two receivers are even on the field) with at least one of the outside receivers an above-average big blocker. And when we are in 11 personnel, and Reed gets his chance, what are the odds that Golden is ever out there with him?

If I had to rank them right now, with Christian Watson likely injured for a while longer, I would put Golden as the best receiver on the team (highly speculative, and you may fairly call me stupid for this, but early signs are promising) and Reed the second best. Even if that is the case, I think there’s a good chance that, between all the receivers and tight ends, neither of them finishes higher than fourth in targets this year.

Will Matt LaFleur use his smaller wide receivers?

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