A pass catcher putting up a 1000-yard season isn’t particularly rare in Packers history. It’s happened 40 times in more than a century of Packers football, dating back to Don Hutson’s 1,211 yards in 1942.
But there won’t be a 1000-yard receiver in Green Bay in 2025, not unless Romeo Doubs really picks up the pace. Through 14 games, Doubs leads the Packers with 578 receiving yards. And as much as I’d like to see Doubs put up 422 yards over the next three games, that doesn’t seem super likely considering
he’s never logged a 100-yard game in his career to this point.
The Packers also didn’t have a 1000-yard receiver in 2024, 2023, or 2022, putting them in a four-year drought since the last time they had a receiver hit that threshold. That ties them for the longest such gap in more than 40 years. Previously, the longest streaks are 10 years (between 1942 and 1952) and 24 years (between 1956 and 1980), but those are safely in what I think we could call the pre-modern passing era. Major rules changes in the late 1970s made it much easier to pass the ball, and the NFL has been in the midst of an ongoing campaign ever since to increase passing efficiency.
There are plenty of reasons for the drought (we’ll get to those in a second), and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to not have a 1000-yard receiver; there are plenty of ways to build a great passing attack even without a single dominant pass catcher. But the Packers are fairly unique in their run without a 1000-yard receiver. Every NFL franchise besides the Packers and one other team has had a 1000-yard receiver since 2021 — George Pickens has actually done it for two different teams in that span. The other team? The New England Patriots, whose last 1000-yard receiver was Julian Edelman in 2019.
Now, why haven’t the Packers been able to hit the 1000-yard threshold? Truthfully, they’ve just had a lousy run of injury luck coupled with a fairly unprecedented period of wide receiver turnover, at least in recent Packers history.
When the Packers moved on from Davante Adams, they tried to do a quick rebuild at the position by drafting three receivers in the spring of 2022 (Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, and Samori Toure) and pairing them with two remaining veterans (Randall Cobb and Allen Lazard) and the newly signed Sammy Watkins. Injuries, coupled with the challenge of getting rookies up to speed in the NFL, put a pretty hard ceiling on the Packers’ individual receiving yards that year. Allen Lazard led the way with 713 yards, but he missed two games due to injury and was limited in a third. Christian Watson, second on the team in receiving yards, also battled injuries that year, as did Romeo Doubs. For that matter, Aaron Rodgers broke his thumb that year and played through the injury, which no doubt limited his efficacy.
In 2023, the Packers again battled injuries and inexperience. Newcomer Jayden Reed led the team with 793 receiving yards, but he missed a game due to injury and was limited to fewer than 50% of the snaps in four others. Watson again had injury issues, playing a career-low nine games.
2024 featured fewer injuries but more inefficiency — it was the Year of the Drop. Watson was the healthiest he’s been, playing 15 games, but only caught 29 passes. Reed, meanwhile, played 17 games and had 857 receiving yards, but was one of the primary drop offenders. Even generally forgiving Pro Football Focus charged him with 10 drops that season; had he caught all of those passes for his typical yards per catch figure, he’d have been within spitting distance of 1,000 yards.
And that brings us to 2025, where injuries again derailed the Packers’ 1000-yard efforts. Two prime contenders had their chances all but ruined by injury. Christian Watson tore his ACL during the final regular-season game of 2024 and didn’t make his season debut until late October, but the numbers he put up prior to his injury against the Broncos would have put him on pace to break 1000 yards. The same goes for Tucker Kraft, who was on pace for a massive 73-catch, 1,139-yard, 14-touchdown season prior to his knee injury against the Panthers.
Essentially, a lot has to go wrong in the modern NFL to keep a team without a 1000-yard receiver for as long as the Packers. It’s a good bet that they’ll break their streak next year, but for now, the drought goes on.
