Yesterday, the Green Bay Packers reportedly agreed to a one-year, $13.25 million contract extension with wide receiver Christian Watson. It’s an interesting move from the team, because you seldom see players sign extensions while on the physically unable to perform list. Remember, Watson is still rehabbing from his 2024 ACL tear, though his father has stated that the receiver is already running 22 MPH. Officially, Watson can return to practice beginning in Week 6, following the Packers’ bye week.
This contract makes a lot of sense for both sides. On Watson’s end, he probably would like some sort of assurances that he will receive big money in his NFL career. Timing is everything in the NFL. Most of the money veteran players make is on their second contracts in the league. Unfortunately for Watson, he’s injured going into a contract year. Taking an extension, even without having the full leverage of health, means that he can at least bring home an extra $13.25 million, which is more than $4 million more than his four-year rookie contract combined. If he gets hurt again in 2025, who knows what his market would look like?
On the Packers’ end, this is well below market value for a full-time starting receiver like Watson, when he’s healthy. For perspective, the Detroit Lions’ Jameson Williams, who has posted similar stats to Watson to date in a similar field-stretching role, inked a three-year contract that pays him out $27.7 million in new money, more than twice what Watson will get for his extra year in Green Bay.
With the addition of Williams, there are now 24 veteran NFL receivers who are making at least $20 million per year. For perspective, there are only six wide receivers on non-rookie contracts under the age of 28 (think second-contract players) who make between $5 million and $20 million per year. Yes, the gulf is wide. Usually, this is more of the range of a declining star than the range for a young pass-catcher that a team plans to play like a number 1 or 2 receiver.
In this $5 million to $20 million range, Watson’s comparables are Jerry Jeudy, Khalil Shakir, Rashod Bateman, Tutu Atwell, Dyami Brown and Josh Palmer. Jeudy has averaged 856 yards per season over his career (excluding 2025) and was traded for a fifth- and sixth-round pick last year. Bateman is at 481. Shakir is Buffalo’s third receiver and has averaged 531 yards. Atwell has averaged 448 in his career. Brown is at 196. Palmer has posted 572.
So if you have sticker shock, just know this is a good number for Watson, who averages 551 per season and averages 740 over 17 games. This is just the cost of business in the NFL, with the league’s salary cap going up about $25 million per year. In fact, if Watson does “prove it” in 2026 and stays healthy over the next two seasons, he’s likely to get money closer to what Williams received ($28 million per year) on his next deal.
The question now is whether that will be in Green Bay or elsewhere. Notably, the Packers haven’t extended receiver Romeo Doubs, another contract-year starter for Green Bay, and just drafted two top-100 receivers in Matthew Golden and Savion Williams. I can report that this offseason, Doubs’ team looked for a multi-year extension in the range of Shakir’s deal with Buffalo, only for talks to stall. He was floated as a trade piece for players and picks at various points this spring and summer, but, obviously, the Packers haven’t found a deal that they’ve liked. Green Bay also wasn’t the team that initiated these talks.
When Watson returns to the field, though, maybe that changes the equation on a potential trade, depending on how the rookies are catching up to the scheme. If Doubs finds a $12.5 million per year deal in free agency, that would net the Packers a 2027 compensatory fifth-round pick, should the team not offset the loss by adding an outside signing in free agency. Can someone beat that number between the time Watson returns and the trade deadline on November 4th? If so, maybe they will finally pull the trigger.
From a long-term perspective, here’s how I see the situation: At a minimum, this probably signals Doubs’ final season in Green Bay. In 2026, the Packers can roll with Watson, Dontayvion Wicks, slot receiver Jayden Reed, Golden and Williams under contract. This gives them options, as Watson, Wicks and Reed will all be in the final years of their contracts. Green Bay will probably pick one of them to pay a multi-year contract. That player, Golden and Williams will be their primary receivers in 2027 and 2028.
Whoever they don’t extend, they’ll collect compensatory picks for, if they can’t trade them for higher draft choices before their contracts expire. For example, if Watson does sign for $28 million in the 2027 offseason, that will probably earn the Packers a third-round pick. So even if Watson does “prove it” in Green Bay, only to leave for another team in free agency after this one-year extension, there are still long-term benefits that the team can receive from this contract.
The Watson deal gives the Packers the short-term flexibility to test the Doubs market, boost their depth in the second half of the 2025 season and play their 2026 extension situation at receiver by ear. It’s pretty unlikely that more than one mouth will get fed, at least on a multi-year extension, between Doubs, Watson, Wicks and Reed, considering the Packers are already going to have to put the 2026 team on cap space credit cards just to keep their current team together.
On top of that, beyond Green Bay already being projected to be over the cap in 2026 with this new Watson money, the upcoming rookie class and the fact that they only have 41 players under contract next year, they have three non-receiver starters who are set to be free agents this offseason (left tackle Rasheed Walker, right guard Sean Rhyan and linebacker Quay Walker) and four non-receiver starters who will be eligible for first-time extensions in March (defensive end Lukas Van Ness, tight end Tucker Kraft, nose tackle Colby Wooden and cornerback Carrington Valentine.) Unfortunately, everyone isn’t going to spend the rest of their careers in Green Bay. Decisions will have to be made at some point.
From here on out, after the trade of Micah Parsons, the Packers have to make really smart decisions with their contracts. It could be the difference between this title window only lasting two years or extending out to a four-year window. Every bad contract that Green Bay won’t want to kick cap hits into the future for will be an obstacle. Here, general manager Brian Gutekunst found a player willing to take less than market value to prove to teams, be it the Packers or whoever else is in the market for him in 2027, that he’s going to stay healthy. And Gutekunst didn’t have to give a multi-year commitment to do it, either.
This is a great contract for Green Bay, especially with how contracts are timing up in the receiver room and their title aspirations over the next two seasons.
