This week’s Green Bay Packers depth chart update is going to be a little longer than usual, because we’ll be covering what happened in both Week 13 and Week 14. Because of that, I split this up into offense
and defense (for this week only), so keep an eye out for the companion piece out tomorrow on the defense.
The Packers’ offense has gone through a lot of changes in the receiver room over the last two weeks. Not only did Jayden Reed come back, but Savion Williams has been missing and Malik Heath has been waived and claimed by the Atlanta Falcons. On top of that, both Dontayvion Wicks and Matthew Golden are pushing through nagging injuries.
So let’s dive into the data from the last couple of wins. As always, the snaps below are hand-charted and include plays with accepted post-snap penalties (like holding) but do not include pre-snap penalties (like false starts) or kneels and spikes.
Cells in red mean that a player missed the game entirely with an injury. Cells in yellow mean that a player was unable to finish the game due to an injury (officially ruled by the team, which is going to be relevant in Wicks’ case this week). Cells in black mean that a player was a healthy scratch for that week.
Offensive Personnel
The Packers are leaning more into three-receiver sets over the last couple of weeks. In Week 12, Green Bay only played a third of their snaps with more than two receivers on the field in their win over the Minnesota Vikings. In Week 13 against the Detroit Lions, that number moved up to 47 percent. On Sunday, it jumped to 52 percent. For perspective, the season average for the team is around 56 percent.
So, while Green Bay’s immediate reaction following the Tucker Kraft injury (which occurred in Week 9) was to play a lot more three-receiver looks, they quickly disbanded that and have now come back around to being around a 50/50 split over the last two weeks.
We’ve talked about nub sets before, and I want to highlight something here because I’ve been hit up by several people about it this week. Yes, all of Jordan Love’s touchdown passes against the Chicago Bears were out of nub looks, with all of the tight ends on one side of the field and all of the receivers on the other side of the field. This gives the Packers a huge man/zone tell on plays where they line up like that, because the defense has to make the decision to play both outside cornerbacks on the same side of the field (likely man coverage) or not (likely zone coverage).
With that being said, the Packers didn’t actually play nub sets often against Chicago. It wasn’t like when the team played the Washington Commanders (who show Cover 1/Cover 3 pre-snap and have one of the worst passing defenses in the NFL) or the Arizona Cardinals (who play a lot of disguise coverages that Green Bay tried to collect as much pre-snap data on before snapping the ball.)
If anything, Matt LaFleur (and co.) had a good beat on when the Bears were going to show blitz fronts and took advantage of that with play-calling. So while all three of Love’s passes came out of 11 personnel nub sets, the team only lined up in those looks seven times throughout the game. They got big plays out of those looks, but the team didn’t “live” in that formation on Sunday. Maybe they’ll want to do so in the rematch against Chicago, though.
Quarterback
Jordan Love is your quarterback. And he’s a damn good one.
Most books have Love floating around third in the MVP race right now, but Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is a heavy favorite. New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye is much closer to Stafford in the second-place spot than Love.
I don’t think he’s going to win MVP (implied odds give him about a nine percent chance), but there is a real opportunity for him to earn second-team All-Pro this year.
Running Back
Since Josh Jacobs has returned to the lineup in Week 13, Chris Brooks has out-snapped Emanuel Wilson 24 to 18 in the backfield. Keep that in mind, as former third-round pick MarShawn Lloyd has an open practice window with the team after starting the season on the injured reserve.
Recently, the Packers have essentially been using Wilson as a route-runner in passing situations, which is something that LaFleur and the rest of the offensive staff have praised as one of Lloyd’s strengths. There’s a real chance that Wilson ends up losing his roster spot down the stretch, as it’s going to be tough for the team to keep four running backs on the 53-man roster, and Brooks has a much more defined role as a blocking back.
Just be ready for that news. Green Bay will try hard to get its draft investments on the field after their rookie seasons. Lloyd is under contract for two more years, while Wilson will likely hit free agency in 2026, if he even finishes out the year for the Packers.
Also, after playing 15 fullback snaps in the previous four weeks, tight end Josh Whyle only played one such snap against the Bears. The team might be phasing out their I formation looks.
Receiver
Okay, so let’s get into the nitty-gritty about the receiver rotation.
First of all, receiver Jayden Reed returned to the team in the full-time slot role for the Packers. In Week 14, the first game that Reed has played since going down with a broken collarbone in Week 2, Reed was in the slot 22 times, the highest rate on the field. For perspective, Green Bay only played three-receiver sets 27 times. On three other 11 personnel looks, Reed was an outside receiver.
What does this mean? Reed is basically on the field full-time when the team is in three-receiver looks, specifically on the field as a slot. When the team is in two-receiver sets, he basically doesn’t get on the field. For the most part, this is how LaFluer has used Reed throughout his career, so little has changed there.
While he only played 25 snaps, that’s essentially a full workload from what you can expect from Reed moving forward, assuming the Packers will be 50/50 in three-receiver sets. I would say that Reed wasn’t on a pitch count in the Bears game.
Beyond Reed, Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs continue to dominate the outside receiver snaps on the field. While both Matthew Golden and Dontayvion Wicks were battling through injury in this game, their usage was very different.
For example, Wicks, whom LaFleur said the Packers shut down in-game, didn’t play the second half of snaps. Meanwhile, Golden was used throughout the game, even in the fourth quarter, in looks where the team tried to get a lot of speed on the field at once (with some combination of Golden, Reed, Christian Watson and/or Bo Melton). So it’s hard to tell how much Golden was really limited by his injury, or whether the team just believes the rookie first-round is the fifth (or sixth) receiver in the pecking order right now.
This is going to be something I’ll track in future weeks, as we get cleaner data on how Golden fits in the receiver room when the other pass-catchers are healthy.
Tight End
Good luck making sense of the tight end room. It seems like the team is mixing it up at the position every week. I will say, Luke Musgrave is often paired with offensive lineman Darian Kinnard when the team plays six-lineman looks, which is an interesting way to do it. Musgrave does get split out wide at times, but on obvious passing downs, the team uses Josh Whyle more on check-release type of plays than Musgrave.
The team has shown no consistency in whether Musgrave or John FitzPatrick will be their TE1 moving forward. They might be deciding this based on the week of practice going into a game, which they’ve said they’ve done at other positions this season.
Offensive Line
Nothing sexy up front. The Packers’ starting line over the last two weeks has been Rasheed Walker, Aaron Banks, Sean Rhyan, Anthony Belton and Zach Tom (left to right), and they’ve taken every single snap in these games. Belton has been a little shakier at right guard in pass protection, but he hasn’t been terrible. The tradeoff that Green Bay gets by actually being able to run the ball semi-efficiently with him inside is probably worth the Jordan Morgan benching.
