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If you weren’t painfully hungover or watching the college football playoffs on New Year’s Day, you probably saw some comments that Green Bay Packers offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich made about first-round rookie receiver Matthew Golden. Let’s not sugarcoat it. Here’s the full exchange:
Reporter: Long-term, what does [Golden] have to do to have a bigger piece of this offense?
Stenavich: I think right now, like, he will. And the good thing is that the last couple of weeks you’ve seen just like his rapport with [quarterback] Jordan [Love], making plays out in practice. But it’s tough right now. It honestly is because you got Christian [Watson], you got Romeo [Doubs], you got [Jayden Reed] back. These guys have got really good experience and they’re really good players. Those are the guys you’re leaning on right now. I think Golden’s got a really bright future. He’s very talented and his time will come, but I think, right now, with the room the way it is, he’s not gonna be in that premier role when the playoffs come around. But, again, if you told me that he’s the number one receiver on a play, I’d be very excited about it, too. We have a lot of really good options when it comes to wide receiver right now, which is a blessing.
There has been a level of backlash to this, some warranted and some unwarranted (in my opinion, you’re free to feel however you want). So let’s unpack this step by step.
First of all, let’s talk about Golden’s role with the team. At the start of the year, Watson was still rehabbing his 2024 ACL tear, which kept him on the injured reserve until Week 8. Reed, the team’s primary slot receiver over the last three seasons, also went down with a broken collarbone in Week 2, which put him on the injured reserve until Week 14.
When Watson returned, both he and Romeo Doubs took over the majority of the team’s outside receiver snaps. When Reed came back, he returned to his slot receiver role.
For the most part, when Watson and Reed were out of the lineup, both Dontayvion Wicks and Golden, when healthy, had basically split time at outside receiver (Watson) and slot receiver (Reed) as their injury replacements. Now that Watson and Reed are back, Wicks and Golden are essentially splitting the fourth receiver role.
With that being said, that doesn’t mean that Golden is just twiddling his fingers on the bench. Even though he only caught one ball against the Baltimore Ravens last week, Golden played 24 snaps of offense, more than Reed (22) and close to Watson (26) and Doubs (25). As a reminder, Wicks left the game with a concussion after playing just three snaps.
Aside from Davante Adams, who was an All-Pro receiver at the time, Packers head coach Matt LaFleur has really avoided feeding a “number one receiver” in his tenure, and has stated time and time again that...
