The Green Bay Packers have a glaring weakness at wide receivers after selling Davante Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders and losing Marquez Valdes-Scantling to the Kansas City Chiefs in free agency.
Coach Matt LaFleur isn’t trying to hide it and he knows they have to do something meaningful to address problems in the position.
“Certainly, if you look at our roster now, we definitely need to put some speed into this space,” LaFleur said Tuesday at the NFL owners’ meetings in Palm Beach, Fla. “We need a serious guy who can take off reporting. We lost a guy who was pretty good at that.”
LaFleur called Adams her “Separator” because of the precise way the All-Pro ran routes and created space, even against doubles teams. He called Valdes-Scantling “our speed guy” because of his fondness for deep balls.
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At this point, Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb and sophomore Amari Rodgers are at the top of the Packers’ depth chart. They also lost Equanimeous St. Brown to the Bears in a free hand.
“It’s like putting a jigsaw puzzle together; you have to find the missing pieces and put it all together,” said LaFleur. “What will that look like in the end? I have no idea now.”
Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst has armed himself with plenty of draft picks and may finally break the NFL’s second-longest streak of first-round picks without a receiver since Green Bay hasn’t taken one since Javon Walker in 2002. The Adams trade with the Raiders brought a first- and second-round pick this year, meaning Green Bay has picks of #22, #28, #53, and #59 in the first two rounds.
“Replacing a guy like Davante Adams will be a multifaceted approach,” Gutekunst said. “It’s not going to be like a single guy.”
And it may not be a singular approach.
While Gutekunst recently attended Pro Days at Ohio State and Penn State, where receivers like Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave and Jahan Dotson could be in the game, there’s still a chance the Packers could add a veteran receiver or two. Free agents still available include Will Fuller, most recently with the Dolphins and whom the Packers attempted to trade against in 2020 while he was with the Texans. Perhaps the best option over the trade is DK Metcalf if the Seattle Seahawks are ready to strike a deal.
Those might be better options than expecting a rookie to make an instant impact given how notoriously Rodgers has been harsh with rookie receivers. Even Adams, a second-round pick, took until his third season to find his step and connection with Rodgers. Valdes-Scantling, a fifth-round pick, also struggled early in his career. Last season, Amari Rodgers, a third-round pick, caught just four passes for 45 yards as a rookie.
“I saw it,” LaFleur said. “It’s a process, like everything. And the more time we have to get these guys out on the field and put them in certain situations so they can learn and grow, hopefully we can be creative to speed that process up. So I don’t know. It will be interesting. “
After all, LaFleur has the two-time reigning MVP quarterback. Speaking for the first time since Rodgers decided to return for the 2022 season, LaFleur said he received the news via text while he was in an offensive planning meeting and “actually rushed out right away to make sure I got it right.” have read”.
“I think he’s going to go as long as he wants to go,” LaFleur said when asked if he had any sense of how long Rodgers could play after the 38-year-old signed a three-year, $150 million contract extension. signed dollars. “…These aren’t conversations we have on a regular basis. So we’re just going to take advantage of the time he’s with us and keep trying to work and grind to hopefully get a Super Bowl one day. “
ESPN’s Jamison Hensley contributed to this report.