One day before the legal tampering period begins and free agents start flying off the board, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler has reported that teams are looking into two Green Bay Packers wide receivers who are set for contract years: Jayden Reed and Dontayvion Wicks.
“Also, [A.J.] Brown isn’t the only receiver potentially available. Baltimore’s Rashod Bateman, Los Angeles’ Quentin Johnston and Green Bay’s Dontayvion Wicks have come up in my talks. Teams have interest in Green Bay’s Jayden Reed, but I don’t
sense the Packers would trade him at this point.”
Last week, we did a deep dive into how the Packers manipulate the league’s compensatory draft pick system and how the team’s contracts are scheduled. Here is what we wrote that was relevant to Wicks and Reed.
“The team has a bunch of cap space to play with in 2027. They will almost certainly use it (and then borrow from future cap space to keep the core of the team together down the stretch). That’s great, but that also means that the team won’t be getting anything if Luke Musgrave, Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, Isaiah McDuffie or Keisean Nixon leave in 2027 free agency, either, when they might be able to get a pick for them if they get a trade done in 2026. The trades of players (not wanted on multi-year extensions) entering contract years on top of the comp picks for the 2026 free agents is how’d they could really supercharge the 2027-2028 window.”
It’s certainly a strategy that would make sense on paper, with the caveat being the fans’ reaction to a soft rebuild coming off the heels of a 9-3-1 start in 2025 that ended in a five-game losing streak.
Clearing Wicks for a pick would push 2025 first-rounder Matthew Golden into a full-time starting role in 2026 (they were basically equals last year), which I can understand making him the more likely trade candidate here. I do have a couple of questions about how Golden and Reed get on the field together, though. Head coach Matt LaFleur has always played smaller receivers as slot-only guys, with his average outside receiver being in the ballpark of 207 pounds (because run blocking is a premium trait for the position in Green Bay).
While Reed has been slot-only with the Packers (for three years), Golden was a bit more of a hybrid slot-outside guy. He gets looks outside, particularly on third downs, but is frequently used as a motion man (starting outside but then motioning into the backfield or slot areas of the field) on standard downs. Some services count a receiver lining up outside and then motioning into the slot or backfield as an outside receiver snap, while others don’t, which is why you’ll see vastly different numbers for Golden’s outside receiver snaps in 2025.
There’s not a lot of 2025 film of Reed playing in the slot and Golden being a stationary outside receiver on standard downs. So the fact that Green Bay isn’t willing to part ways with Reed hopefully means that the team has a better plan for using them on the field together in 2026.
