Last season's edition of the Packers had a lot of good. From double-digit wins for the first time since 2021, to a robust +122 point differential (fifth-best in the league!), Matt LaFleur (again) largely proved capable of winning against more squads than not around the league. 

Green Bay Packers in 2024:

  • Points per game: 27.1 (8th)
  • EPA per dropback: +0.18 (7th)
  • EPA per rush: -0.03 (9th)
  • Points per game against: 19.9 (6th)

Unfortunately, things got a bit more rough for Jordan Love and company when presented against true high-end competition: All six of their non-Week 18 losses (sorry Bears fans) came against the Eagles, Vikings, and Lions … three of the NFL's only four teams to win 14-plus games last season.

Green Bay's offseason counter was to bitch about banning the tush push pour more resources into the WR room while adding LG Aaron Banks (4 years, $77 million) and CB Nate Hobbs (4 years, $48 million) to big-dollar contracts in free agency.

Throw in LaFleur's proven excellence (third-best active head coach in terms of winning percentage!), and it makes sense that this squad carries the ninth-highest Super Bowl odds entering next season.

This brings us to today's goal: Answering key (mostly fantasy-related) questions about the Packers ahead of their 2025 season.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

Packers 2025 Fantasy Football and Team Preview

Is Jordan Love a good or great fantasy QB?

Love's first full year as a starter in 2023 was really a tale of two halves. In Weeks 1-8, this was one of the league's least-accurate QBs performing at an objectively mediocre level. But after that? We're talking about top-two marks in EPA per dropback, completion percentage over expected, and PFF pass grade alike. The result was a sterling 18.8 fantasy points per game—good for a QB5 finish.

Too bad the sequel wasn't as good as the original. Love slipped to QB17 status on the season and somehow was the QB33 on a per-game basis from Weeks 8-18. Reminder: There are only 32 NFL teams.

And yet, the advanced numbers don't paint the picture of a horrid QB … just one who didn't manage to stay quite as hot as he ended in 2023.

Some of those numbers are really good! We're talking borderline elite marks in EPA per dropback (9th) and yards per attempt (5th), and his continued ability to avoid sacks has only really been matched by Josh Allen during the last season and a half.

So what happened to the fantasy points? It turns out severely spraining your MCL in Week 1 and then hurting your groin in Week 8 doesn't exactly help out in the ole' rushing department.

Love fantasy points per game when playing 65%+ snaps:

  • 2023: Passing (16.7), Rushing (2.9)
  • 2024: Passing (16.5), Rushing (1.1)

A 1.8-fantasy-point difference from rushing might not seem like a lot; just realize Love would have been just a smidge off QB12 status behind Kyler Murray with the benefit of his previous rushing mobility. We're talking about only 18 non-kneeldowns all season; his scrambles were cut in half!

Ultimately, a healthy version of Love *should* be plenty capable of again putting up quality numbers alongside one of the league's best play callers and anyone's idea of a top-tier supporting cast—even if it'd be a lot cooler if one of these WRs could actually emerge as a legit alpha one of these days (more on that in a bit).

Bottom line: Love isn't that big of a rusher to begin with, but getting back into 2023 territory will help him separate from the true pocket passers of the world in the prolonged QB2 tier.

He's my QB15 just behind Justin Herbert and Drake Maye, but ahead of more stationary QBs like Jared Goff and Tua Tagovailoa. I wouldn't say I've gone out of my way to consistently scoop him at his current QB17 ADP, but the depth of this tier has me plenty content to bypass the lower-end QB1 options if unable to draft a real elite option in the first few rounds.

Was Josh Jacobs' 2024 workhorse role real or a fugazi?

Jacobs proved his down 2023 was more an issue of motivation and offensive environment than anything, as his 1,671 total yards and 16 TDs as the engine of the Packers offense helped him finish as the RB8 in PPR points per game.

Here's the thing: Jacobs ran as pure as anyone when it came to his backfield mates going down with injuries. A.J. Dillon (neck) missed the entire season, and third-rounder MarShawn Lloyd (hamstring, ankle) only wound up playing one game all year.

Why do Dillon and Lloyd matter when you have a great RB like Jacobs?

Well, Matt LaFleur doesn't exactly have the cleanest history of always featuring one clear lead back. We're talking about a man who once split touches between Derrick Henry and Dion Lewis for crying out loud! (With all due respect to Dion Lewis).

That brings us to Lloyd, who displayed some explosive pass-catching ability during his time at USC and USC (he went to South Carolina AND Southern California lolz). It's not a given Lloyd is the for sure next man up after Emanuel Wilson actually did some good things as RB2 last year; just realize Green Bay used a third-round pick on Lloyd for a reason before going ahead and largely ignoring the position throughout the entire offseason.

Bottom line: Jacobs is a consensus top-10 option at the position and someone who is firmly in play at his affordable late-Round 2, early-Round 3 ADP, even if I prefer more clear-cut workhorse backs like Jonathan Taylor and Derrick Henry, if possible.

Meanwhile, Lloyd is largely being ignored and is regularly available in the final round or two of most drafts. While we can't completely assume he'd inherit the bulk of Jacobs' work should an injury arise, that sentiment is true for basically any RB going this late in drafts—and Lloyd's plus draft capital, skill-set, and offensive environment—is a combo worth betting on. He joins Jaylen Wright and Will Shipley as my favorite LATE-round darts at the position.

Who is the No. 1 WR in this ever-crowded room?

Annoyed fantasy managers aren't the only ones feeling like this WR room needs a jolt: Packers RB Josh Jacobs stated in early February, “I think we need a guy that's proven to be a No. 1 WR already.”

And for good reason. No group of WRs had more total drops than the Packers (25), and their drop rate (8.4%) also led the league. The top of the leaderboard in drop rate featured Dontayvion Wicks (17%) and Jayden Reed (15.4%), as well as former friends Allen Lazard (17.8%) and Marquez Valdes-Scantling (13.6%).

What the hell are they putting in Green Bay's WR room Gatorade cooler?!

Enter: Matthew Golden, who became the Packers' first WR selected in the first round since Javon Walker all the way back in 2002! While we aren't exactly looking at a can't-miss sort of prospect profile, both Fantasy Life Draft Expert Thor Nystrom and Director of Analytics Dwain McFarland had plenty of good things to say about Golden before the draft:

  • Thor (Golden WR3): "I do not believe that Matthew Golden will be a superstar in the NFL. But I think he will be a premium WR2 on a contender—somebody who will lick single-coverage, make plays for you at any sector of the field, and naturally shift between the boundary and slot as needed."
     
  • Dwain (Golden WR4): Dwain's top Super Model comps for Golden were Ladd McConkey, Ja'Lynn Polk, and Mecole Hardman. He notes, “While McConkey and Golden aren't the same player stylistically, their range of outcomes is similar based on the data that correlates best with future production.”

Mr. 4.29 should earn a starting spot sooner rather than later inside a room that figures to be missing Christian Watson (knee) for the first 50%-plus of the year, although we shouldn't completely count out the other involved parties:

  • Jayden Reed: Somehow only had 75 targets in 17 games last season despite regularly looking like the offense's best playmaker. The first man without the last name Samuel to lead all WRs in rushing yards since 2018, Reed is reportedly still very much the WR1 in Green Bay despite the addition of two top-100 picks at the position.
     
  • Romeo Doubs: Led the team in target share in each of the past two seasons, yet only has WR47 and WR48 finishes in PPR points per game to show for it. It sure seems like Doubs' spot in three-WR sets is safe as the offense's X receiver, although expecting bunches of additional targets with the added competition feels like wishful thinking.
     
  • Dontayvion Wicks: Tied for fourth in ESPN's "Open Rating" metric meant to help quantify separation … and dead last in catch rating. The man went from ninth in yards per target (10) to 85th (5.5). Maybe 2025 will look more like 2023 than 2024, but it sure seems like Golden is coming for his job.
     
  • Savion Williams: The playmaker earned a spicy Cordarrelle Patterson comp from many in the pre-draft process, which is saying something considering I am the official President of the Cordarrelle Patterson fan club, but it's also hard to see the rookie displacing either Golden, Reed, or Doubs from three-WR sets, making his year-one role probably more of the gadget variety.Too 

Bottom line: The uncertainty surrounding the target share here has led to all parties involved boasting affordable ADPs. Ultimately, Reed and Golden are the two targets here, and both are priced outside of the top-40 options in early drafts. This WR4 price tag feels closer to both players' floor than ceiling and accordingly makes them quality mid-round targets, especially considering the dropoff at the position after the first ~50 players are off the board.

Just how high is Tucker Kraft's fantasy ceiling?

The Packers' 2023 third-round pick worked well behind Luke Musgrave throughout their rookie seasons, but an early-season ankle injury kept the latter TE off the field for a large portion of the 2024 regular season.

This allowed Kraft to run away with the starting job, and at this point, it's hard to imagine Musgrave ever getting it back. After all, the South Dakota State product proved to be one of the league's most-efficient players at the position.

Kraft among 31 TEs with 50-plus targets in 2024:

  • Yards per route run: 1.63 (No. 9)
  • Yards per target: 10.1 (No. 2)
  • Yards per reception: 14.1 (No. 2)
  • Yards after the catch per reception: 9.1 (No. 1)

The latter YAC figure was where Kraft really made his money. Overall, Kraft's +3.1 yards after the catch over expected easily led the position, while ESPN advanced receiver ratings also dubbed him as the top dog at TE when it came to pure YAC ability.

Bottom line: Kraft still managed to post near full-time route rates regardless of whether Musgrave was able to suit up. The bigger concern is good ole-fashioned TD regression: Scoring seven times on 70 targets might be wishful thinking again ahead of 2025, and the crowded WR room puts a bit of a ceiling here. Consider: Kraft is just 16th in projected targets at the position ahead of 2025.

For this reason, I haven't overly prioritized him in early drafts—give me potential triple-digit target hogs like Evan Engram and David Njoku at similar price points—but at a minimum, Kraft is still a solid borderline TE1 target.

Could Malik Willis get another starting shot at some point in the future?

I usually reserve this question for something about the team's offensive line or defense, but I wanted to give some love to the dual-threat backup who performed quite well in two spot starts last season after being run out of Nashville.

Consider: Willis ranked first in yards per attempt (10.2) and third in yards per carry (6.9) if you move the thresholds low enough. Small-sample size be damned—the man was looking like a poor man's Lamar Jackson out there!

QB22 and QB6 finishes in his two full starts reflect the reality that Willis is capable of supplying some fantasy goodness whenever given the opportunity to play a full game.

Don't expect a legit competition anytime soon; just realize more progression as a passer could eventually lead to a starting chance elsewhere, something that could be followed by bunches of fantasy points given the dual-threat ability at hand.

Prediction for the Packers 2025 Season

The Packers' 9.5 win total comes after LaFleur has won 13, 13, 13, 8, 9, and 11 games during his six years leading the Pack.

Unfortunately, the suddenly lethal NFC North won't offer much relief throughout the year, but man, expecting under double-digit wins for what (again) looks like one of the conference's more complete teams feels like wishful thinking.

Give me OVER 9.5 wins, and my bold fantasy call is that Jayden Reed solidifies himself as THE WR1 in Green Bay on his way to working as a top-30 WR in PPR points per game.