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Green Bay Packers sedcond-year wide receiver Matthew Golden (0) had a quiet rookie season, but coukld be poised for big things in 2026.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Green Bay was arguably the most disappointing team in football in 2025. And perhaps no coach did less with more than Packers’ boss Matt LaFleur.
Green Bay headed into the season with one of the NFL’s top rosters, traded for star defensive end Micah Parsons 10 days before the year began and had the second-best odds to win the NFC. Suddenly, Packer Nation was dreaming of their first Super Bowl appearance since 2010.
Instead, Green Bay went a remarkably unsatisfying 9-8-1 overall and were the NFC’s No. 7 seed for a third consecutive year. The Packers then blew a 21-3 halftime lead in the Wild Card round against Chicago, gave up 25 fourth quarter points and eventually suffered a shocking 31-27 loss to the arch-rival Bears.
“No way you should lose games in this league when you’re up that much,” Green Bay running back Josh Jacobs said.
Green Bay, which began the year 9-3-1, finished the season with five straight losses. The Packers will now enter 2026 with the league’s fourth-longest losing streak. Green Bay also hasn’t won the NFC North since 2021, the longest drought in the division.
Collapsing late in games was the story of Green Bay’s 2025 campaign.
Green Bay had double digit leads in the final minutes twice against Chicago and also vs. Cleveland and somehow went 0-3 in those games. The Packers’ odds of losing all three contests were 1-in-250,000, yet they somehow did it.
“That (expletive), it’s starting to get damn-near embarrassing,” safety Javon Bullard said.
Rebounding won’t be easy as Green Bay was hit hard in free agency and didn’t have a first round draft pick. There are certain areas the Packers should be better in, though, giving them some hope for better 2026.
Here are three areas where Green Bay could make strides this fall.
1. Wide receiver room
The three most dynamic receivers on Green Bay’s roster in 2025 were Christian Watson, Matthew Golden and Jayden Reed.
Golden played 43.0% of the snaps, Watson was at 39.7% and Reed was at 16.2%. Romeo Doubs, who signed with New England in free agency, led the receiver group with 74.2% of the snaps and Dontayvion Wicks (trade to Philadelphia) played 38.8% of the time.
With fewer mouths to feed, roles should be more clearly defined. And if Watson, Golden and Reed can stay healthy — a big if — Green Bay’s passing game should improve.
“I don't think we've ever lacked talent at that position and I think a year ago, I think we all saw it, man,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “It was hard to get everybody the amount of touches that we'd like to get them, so I think this is an opportunity to kind of reset everything and we've got more opportunities I'd say for everybody in that room.”
2. Run defense
The Packers never fully recovered from the losses of defensive tackles Kenny Clark (trade) and T.J. Slaton (free agent) a year ago.
Green Bay’s run defense ranked 18th in Expected Points Added (EPA) and 28th in success rate. And over the final seven games of the season, the Packers allowed 5.0 yards per carry.
The low point came in a Week 16 loss to Baltimore when Derrick Henry ran for 216 yards and four touchdowns. The Ravens finished that night with 308 rushing yards as a team, and afterwards, quarterback Tyler Huntley donned a foam cheese grater on his head.
Packers rookie third round nose tackle Chris McClellan should help. Green Bay will also employ more big bodies up front in new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon’s 3-4 scheme.
“I'd like to be bigger up front,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said. “And we've, most of the time since ‘18, we kind of started trying to get bigger we've been. We've had good size there, and I think right now, I feel really good about our size across the board.”
3. Left tackle
The rest of the NFL told the world what they thought of Rasheed Walker this offseason. Not much.
Walker, the Packers’ left tackle the last three seasons, was hoping to hit it big in free agency. Instead, he signed a paltry one-year, $4 million deal.
Green Bay will now hand the reigns to 2024 first round draft pick Jordan Morgan, a college left tackle who’s longed to play that spot since his arrival. Instead, Morgan has bounced around the line during an unsteady first two seasons.
Morgan (6-5, 311) is a high-level athlete, though, who has terrific feet and ran the 40-yard dash in 5.04 seconds at the NFL Combine. In Morgan’s final two seasons at Arizona, he allowed just three sacks in 880 pass blocking snaps.
Morgan’s arms (32 7/8 inches) are at least an inch shorter than most teams desire from their left tackle. Still, Green Bay believes Morgan can play left tackle, and the Packers will give him a chance to prove it this summer.
“I think he was ready last training camp,” Gutekunst said of Morgan. “I thought he had a really good training camp. I thought he was ready to go and I think if we were to need him at any point in the (2025) season to play left tackle, we were very confident he could go there and play winning football.”
If things go well, Green Bay should improve at the most important position up front.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com
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