Matt LaFleur is sick of hearing about Packers’ WR1 situation

Matt LaFleur is sick of hearing about Packers’ WR1 situation

In their first season without Aaron Rodgers starting behind center in 15 years, the Green Bay Packers exceeded expectations, this time on the back of Jordan Love.

After a porous 2-5 start, the third-year quarterback found his groove. Green Bay finished the season winners of seven of their last 10 regular season games. It parlayed that success into a 48-32 thrashing over the Dallas Cowboys in the Wild Card game before nearly beating the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara a week later.

While he picked apart defenses behind center, Love dealt with a banged-up receiving room for much of the 2023 season. Jayden Reed and Romeo Doubs led the team in receptions with 64 and 59, respectively, though the offense lacked a true No. 1 target.

It still does in the mind of many, and head coach Matt LaFleur is sick of hearing about it.

“I want to vomit every time I hear ‘No. 1 receiver,’ to be honest with you,” LaFleur told reporters Monday. “It drives me crazy. That’s something that you guys talk about. I feel like we’ve got a bunch of ’em.

“I think the beauty of them is they’re all capable of doing many things, which gives us a lot of versatility from an offensive perspective in terms of how we use these guys and deploy their talents. Especially with those top four guys, they’re all capable of being a ‘No. 1’ in some capacity, and it’s just how do we want to attack somebody and where do we want to put those guys. … (the top receiver) could change on a week-to-week basis.”

Love echoed a similar sentiment in early June when asked about the topic:

“I think you don’t have to have a No. 1 receiver,” Love said. “I think it works out well when you can spread the ball out and you got different guys making different plays and you can put ’em in different areas.“

The Packers had a bevy of solid pass-catching options. Reed and Doubs led the team with eight touchdowns while combining for nearly 1,500 yards; Dontayvion Wicks is a Love-favorite, blossoming over the latter-half of the season; Luke Musgrave was on-pace for 56 catches and 580 yards as a rookie before suffering a serious abdominal injury that kept him out for six of the final seven weeks.

That’s not including Christian Watson, a 6-foot-4 freak athlete who’s had difficulty staying on the field in each of his first two seasons. When he is, however, he’s electric.

Having multiple receivers with diversifying skill sets does benefit an offense, especially when there’s not much predictability of who’s getting the majority of targets. Green Bay ranked No. 4 in passing success rate and No. 3 in EPA/dropback over the final 10 weeks of the season, and who knows whether that success will carry over for a full season without a solidified No. 1 target.

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