Acme Packing Company
It was no secret that the Packers had issues at wide receiver coming into their Monday Night Football matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles. Between injuries old and new, romeo Doubs was just about their only healthy wide receiver, and even he left the game with an injury.
But when faced with significant depth issues, what the Packers didn’t do is just as noteworthy as what they did. With the offense in desperate need of bodies at the receiver position, the Packers turned to wide receiver turned defensive back Bo Melton to fill out their depth chart. He played 24 snaps on offense, a notable figure on its own, but especially when you compare it to Savion Williams’ participation.
Williams, a third round pick this spring, played just six snaps against the Eagles — the same number as reserve running back Chris Brooks and backup tight end Josh Whyle, and only two more than Darian Kinnard, who cameoed as a jumbo-sized tight end for four snaps.
When he was on the field, Williams at least was involved in the offense, but the manner of his involvement is much like the rset of the Packers’ offense at the moment: disjointed and unserious. Williams was targeted with two passes: one a pop pass as he sprintied by Jordan Love in a jet motion, the other a screen pass. Neither went anywhere; veteran Eagles’ defender Brandon Graham easily sniffed out the push pass, and the screen, like so many others in Green Bay this year, was dead on arrival. Williams finished with two receiving yards.
The scouting report on Williams this spring was that he didn’t really know how to play wide receiver yet, but he offered an intriguing physical profile. The Packers clearly believe that scouting report to the letter. Seemingly enamored with his physical gifts, Matt LaFleur has kept jamming Williams into the lineup throughout the year, committed to a gadget package to get him involved, despite mountains of evidence that it’s not working. And outside of that small role (and his kickoff return duties), the Packers don’t trust Williams to do any actual wide receiver things. He’s almost entirely restricted to his gadget plays, screen passes, and running clear-out routes to open things up underneath for guys like Tucker Kraft.
Except with Kraft out of the lineup, there was no reason to have Williams out there, so LaFleur turned to Bo Melton to do actual wide receiver things.
General manager Brian Gutekunst famously has a pretty terrible track record in the third round, with players like Jace Sternberger and Amari Rodgers dotting his resume (along with plenty of others). It’s still very early, but Williams is profiling a lot like Rodgers to this point in his career. There was plenty of evidence from the word go that Rodgers couldn’t get the job done for the Packers, yet the Packers kept trotting him out on special teams and in small gadget roles (remember the brief “maybe Amari Rodgers is a running back”...
