2025 Green Bay Packers Fantasy Preview: Can Jordan Love return to form?
2024 Green Bay Packers Stats (Rank)
Points per game: 27.1 (8th)
Total yards per game: 370.8 (5th)
Plays per game: 60.4 (25th)
Dropbacks per game: 33.2 (32nd)
Dropback EPA per play: 0.18 (7th)
Rush attempts per game: 30.9 (6th)
Rush EPA per play: -0.03 (9th)
Josh Jacobs paves the way
If you're looking at the above stats, the first thing that stands out is Green Bay's absurd tilt toward their ground game. They were top 10 in both pass and run EPA but leaned on Josh Jacobs with 301 carries. Only the Eagles and Colts logged lower pass rates versus expectation. This was a stark turn from the balanced and sometimes pass-first approach LaFleur took in previous seasons.
This chart from RBSDM.com shows Green Bay's pass rate on first and second down over the years. The Packers were slightly in favor of running the ball compared to league-average for LaFleur's first five years as a head coach. They then fall off the face of the Earth in 2024. LaFleur could have changed his offensive philosophy, but a more obvious explanation is that he was protecting his wounded quarterback. Love injured his MCL in Week 1 on the patchy turf of Arena Corinthians in São Paulo, Brazil. He missed two games, both of which Malik Willis won. Love later injured his groin in Week 8 and his elbow in Week 18.
Packers were never going to be pass happy last year, but Jordan Love's injuries caused the extreme run heaviness.
GB was 6th in neutral pass rate after Week 1 and finished the season last (by a mile).
Packers Pass Rates Over Expected by week.. pic.twitter.com/3nUkgSmtDo
With a shutdown defense and an elite ground attack, LaFleur deployed his passing game sparingly but with devastating efficiency. Love threw deep at the second-highest rate in the league and Green Bay had the fourth-highest explosive pass rate. LaFleur has proven to be one of the most adaptable and successful coaches in the league. It's an unfair standard to hold almost any coach to, but an NFC title is the goal for 2025.
Passing Game
QB: Jordan Love, Malik Willis
WR: Matthew Golden, Dontayvion Wicks
WR: Jayden Reed, Savion Williams
WR: Romeo Doubs, Christian Watson
TE: Tucker Kraft, Luke Musgrave
Green Bay's dreadful pass rate was punishing for fantasy managers expecting a breakout from Love and Co., but it did allow him to post marvelous efficiency numbers. He finished the regular season ranked ninth in EPA per play, 10th in AY/A, and 14th in PFF passing grade. The volume, of course, was an issue. Love attempted more than 35 passes in just two games. For reference, 31 passers hit that mark in three or more games. Love looked like one of the league's next stars at the quarterback position coming off his red-hot 2023 breakout. The following season didn't go as planned, but his play wasn't the issue. The Packers have since given us a clear signal via the draft that they want to open things up in 2025 by selecting Matthew Golden with the No. 23 pick.
Golden was an odd prospect from an analytics perspective. He only played in college for three years and landed in the first round on the back of strong film grades and a blazing 4.29 Forty. On the other hand, he accounted for a measly 17 percent of his team's receiving yards in two years at Houston and only bumped that number up to 22 percent in his lone year at Texas. He averaged a pedestrian 2.1 yards per route run in 2024. His peak of 1.8 yards per team pass attempt doesn't hold a candle to the career-bests set by the other top-40 picks of this draft class either.
Matthew Golden was great at the end of 2024. What limited his production at Houston? pic.twitter.com/HKz9Q5MtDS
Golden doesn't have the skill set of a target dominator, but he should be able to leverage his speed into a solid role as Green Bay's deep threat out of the gates. He could be a stereotypical 'better in Best Ball' pick early in his career.
Golden's selection was a clear indictment of Jayden Reed's standing in the pecking order for opportunities, despite his sterling statistical profile. He posted 1.95 YPRR as a rookie and increased that to 2.2 last year despite seeing fewer targets per route. The pushback on a Reed breakout is how Green Bay deploys him. He got above a route rate of 80 percent in three games last year. His 17 percent target share ranked 56th among wideouts. As great as his peripherals are, Reed isn't treated like a No. 1 wideout by his own team. Currently going off early draft boards as the WR43, Reed is a great bet on talent given his meager price.
Romeo Doubs will round out the team's starting wideouts. Doubs is the receiver LaFleur trusts the most, even if he's the least exciting option they have. Doubs earned a 19 percent target share and ran a route on 83 percent of Green Bay's dropbacks in 2024, leading the way in both categories. The bad news is that a lack of explosive plays meant Doubs never topped 20 points in a game. Doubs is a low-ceiling bet fantasy managers only need to make it they are light on points early in the season.
Beyond the aforementioned starting trio, we should still expect several receivers to see the field for Green Bay. Dontayvion Wicks ran over half of the team's routes last year and was an elite separator on deep routes. ESPN's player tracking data ranked him fourth in the league in Open Score. For those who drafted Wicks as a fantasy sleeper, this was all but meaningless. The young wideout caught a case of the yips and led the NFL with an 18 percent drop rate. It was the highest drop rate for a receiver with at least 75 targets since 2020. Christian Watson was expected to play a larger role in the passing game but rarely pushed beyond a part-time gig. Knee and ankle issues limited him throughout the year, though he was efficient as a field-stretcher, averaging 2.3 YPRR and 21.4 YPC. Watson's season ended with a torn ACL in Week 18, meaning we aren't likely to see him until midway through the 2025 season at best. The Packers added gadget receiver Savion Williams in the third round of the draft, giving them another part-time player to frustrate fantasy managers. Williams caught 60 passes and ran the ball 51 times as a senior at TCU. He's a project for the Packers and not on the redraft radar.
At tight end, Tucker Kraft enters the season as the unquestioned starter. Kraft isn't much of a target earner. He saw the ball on 15 percent of his routes and earned a pedestrian 15 percent target share. When he did get opportunities, Kraft was a force of nature with the ball in his hands. His 8.8 yards after the catch per reception is the highest mark for a tight end since 2018. Kraft is a spike week TE2 who will need to command more targets to push into the TE1 ranks.
Running Game
RB: Josh Jacobs, MarShawn Lloyd, Emanuel Wilson, Chris Brooks
OL (L-R): Rasheed Walker, Aaron Banks, Elgton Jenkins, Jordan Morgan, Zach Tom
The Packers have a shockingly simple approach on the ground: Give the rock to Jacobs early and often. The free agent addition was one of six backs to top 300 carries. He turned that into 1,329 yards and 15 scores. Jacobs also amassed a 36/322/1 receiving line while averaging a respectable 1.4 YPRR. Love's various injuries certainly pushed Green Bay toward a run-heavy approach, but Jacobs gave them plenty of reasons to do so on his own. He matched his elite counting stats with impressive marks in the spreadsheets:
90.5 PFF Rushing Grade (4th)
3.5 YAC per carry (7th)
.73 RYOE per carry (10th)
48.8 percent success
Green Bay drafted MarShawn Lloyd on Day Two of the draft to be a lightning option to Jacobs' thunder. He dealt with several injuries as a rookie and only took the field for one game. The coaches have generally been positive on his outlook heading into year two, making him a fun late-round dart in best ball leagues.
Matt LaFleur said that MarShawn Lloyd "worked his butt off" from the day the season ended to the day the Packers returned to the facility before another injury popped up, but he's overcome it. "He's in a lot better of a spot right now."
Third-stringer Emanuel Wilson won't be going down without a fight for the RB2 job. Wilson averaged 4.9 yards per carry on 103 attempts as the primary backup to Jacobs last year and was capable as a pass-catcher out of the backfield. Jacobs isn't going to leave enough meat on the bone for a second back to be relevant on a week-to-week basis, but the winner of this camp battle will be one of the more exciting backup running backs to draft in deep leagues.
Win Total
DraftKings Over/Under: 9.5
Pick: Over (-120)
LaFleur has hit double-digit wins in 4-of-6 seasons as the Packers' boss and did so last year while coaxing two wins out of Malik Willis. His team is also running back the squad they had in 2024 while everyone else in the NFC North is experiencing some sort of extreme turnover. If you're sold on the idea that LaFleur will be taking the restrictor plate off a healthy Love this year, his passing props also look enticing. DraftKings has Love priced at -110 to top 3,600 passing yards, a mark he easily cleared in 2023, when he was healthy and LaFleur was letting him sling it.
Chris Simms explains why Green Bay Packers signal-caller Jordan Love falls into the "Want To Touch The Hiney" tier of his 2025 QB Countdown.
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