First Round Pick #23 - Matthew Golden WR - Texas

[tynimiller]

I think Bo will be a RFA in 2026, which means that the Packers could tender him an offer, but he can still negotiate with other teams for a better deal. Which, the Packers could still match/beat and keep him. That said, I really don't see teams pushing Melton's salary up very high.

I also believe RFA

 

[Half Empty]

I'm almost sure of it.

Sportrac

 

[Poppa San]

So, unfortunately, it's kind of looking like rookie year has been/is largely a wash for Golden. Doesn't really seem to be through any fault of his own that much - he's had injuries, and I think we have intentionally been pretty slow about working him in and keeping a close eye on his health. But I'm really going to be curious to see how next year takes shape.

I feel like in general we are also just not a team that is typically expecting first round picks to hit the ground running and immediately establish as a day one, sure-thing starter. We are almost always willing to play the long game and slowly ramp guys up, sometimes even arguably to a fault. So perhaps that is at play here too.

Overall for the season, Golden sits at 10 games featured, but only 4 starts. He has 24 recs on 33 targets, good for 286 yards and unfortunately has yet to get his first TD. For a 17 game season, that extrapolates to roughly 7-8 starts, ~40 rec, and around 500 yards, which ironically I think is largely right about in-line with what many projected for year one.

So, anyhow, next year. How's that going to shake out?
Looking at our WR room...

Watson is our #1 right now, obviously he's a shoe-in. He just extended but is probably on track for a long-term deal as soon as possible honestly. Obviously he will be here next year.

Reed just came back from injury and immediately had a big impact. He was also probably our most impactful player before Kraft blew up, especially with Watson out here and there. He's also got a year left on his rookie contract, he's another guy who 100% won't be going anywhere.

Wicks also has a year left on his rookie deal and he costs next to nothing. 1.2m cap hit and a max savings of like 1.1m. He's kind of a tough one for me to predict. I think the team really likes him overall.

Melton is another interesting one. As you all are well aware I'm sure we basically stashed him as a CB this past summer. Seemed like a weird move, basically in effect it's allowed him to be a key ST player and to get some reps at WR due to injuries. But he is out of contract after this year, and I don't know if he has really shown enough to be brought back at this point

Savion is technically a WR, but he is not really in competition with Golden for reps IMO. And of course he just got here, he's going nowhere.

So the big question mark again remains with Doubs. He's in a tough spot. I don't think Doubs ever is going to become a proper "#1" for anyone... and he's generally not a super splashy or "home run" type of player but he IS remarkably consistent. Look at his stats over his time with us, and each year is virtually identical, just a few percentage points of difference here and there. Incredibly steady player. That has some value for sure. And the last I heard, we were at least opening cursory talks about a contract extension...
BUT, I think ultimately we will probably get priced out. We are not exactly a high-volume passing first attack, and I think some other teams are probably going to look at his production here and think he can at worst become a "high end #2" if he joins a team that's throwing the ball around more. Just in recent years you've got guys like Dyami Brown, Curtis Samuel, Josh Palmer getting contracts in the ballpark of 10m AAV in free agency, and...Doubs isn't worse than those guys

Hard for me to say then. My gut says we get priced out of resigning Doubs. Melton, I don't know if we bring him back or not. What kind of deal would he require, does he want to test the waters elsewhere? In any case I'm guessing it's probably Watson, Reed, Golden, Wicks, Williams, but we usually will carry more than 5 (and Williams is basically a pseudo WR it seems lol). With that in mind I'm kind of curious to speculate/project what next season might look like with that competition...

This season we have basically 3 WR positions. Speed, gadget, and possession. Not saying any and all can't do all three but their first instinct is one of those. I see Golden as the backup to Watson at the speed position. Williams duplicates what Reed does. Wicks is the fill-in for Doubs to be the possession guy. Melton is probably just a wrinkle. I expect Williams' snap count to plummet now that Reed is back just like I feel Golden's would have dropped when Watson returned even if healthy. Next off season there will be a slight shuffling as the rookies take on larger roles and more position experience.

 

[tynimiller]

This season we have basically 3 WR positions. Speed, gadget, and possession. Not saying any and all can't do all three but their first instinct is one of those. I see Golden as the backup to Watson at the speed position. Williams duplicates what Reed does. Wicks is the fill-in for Doubs to be the possession guy. Melton is probably just a wrinkle. I expect Williams' snap count to plummet now that Reed is back just like I feel Golden's would have dropped when Watson returned even if healthy. Next off season there will be a slight shuffling as the rookies take on larger roles and more position experience.

Watson's Health, Wicks progression in his hands not being made of marble and if Reed proves GTG all point towards one very sad Indiana resident Packer fan come the off season......this guy is going to miss Doubs mightedly, but it just makes sense to respectfully let him go - unless an absolute sweetheart deal is worked out.

 

[Magooch]

Savion's a really hard one for me to project. He's only had ~11% of offensive snaps (and not a ton more on ST at ~15%) to begin with...

In terms of passing reps he's hardly an option either. He has just 10 "targets" all year....but I put targets in quotes because by my count only TWO of those targets came beyond the line of scrimmage - all the rest have been either screens or jet sweeps. He's not really a factor in the downfield passing game at all at this point so it's kind of hard for me to pencil him in behind Reed...

Golden is kind of tricky to project for me too honestly. He's crazy fast but at the same time doesn't have the same build/length to really sub Watson...but then I think Reed should more or less lock down our slot role. He is a versatile guy too who can fill a lot of roles but I'm not sure I can define a "primary" for him just yet. I guess probably the closest similar scenario I could think of would be like the Eagles with AJ Brown, Devonta Smith, and Jahan Dotson....Where Watson is more or less AJ Brown and Reed/Golden fill as Smith/Dotson?

 

[Heyjoe4]

So, unfortunately, it's kind of looking like rookie year has been/is largely a wash for Golden. Doesn't really seem to be through any fault of his own that much - he's had injuries, and I think we have intentionally been pretty slow about working him in and keeping a close eye on his health. But I'm really going to be curious to see how next year takes shape.

I feel like in general we are also just not a team that is typically expecting first round picks to hit the ground running and immediately establish as a day one, sure-thing starter. We are almost always willing to play the long game and slowly ramp guys up, sometimes even arguably to a fault. So perhaps that is at play here too.

Overall for the season, Golden sits at 10 games featured, but only 4 starts. He has 24 recs on 33 targets, good for 286 yards and unfortunately has yet to get his first TD. For a 17 game season, that extrapolates to roughly 7-8 starts, ~40 rec, and around 500 yards, which ironically I think is largely right about in-line with what many projected for year one.

So, anyhow, next year. How's that going to shake out?
Looking at our WR room...

Watson is our #1 right now, obviously he's a shoe-in. He just extended but is probably on track for a long-term deal as soon as possible honestly. Obviously he will be here next year.

Reed just came back from injury and immediately had a big impact. He was also probably our most impactful player before Kraft blew up, especially with Watson out here and there. He's also got a year left on his rookie contract, he's another guy who 100% won't be going anywhere.

Wicks also has a year left on his rookie deal and he costs next to nothing. 1.2m cap hit and a max savings of like 1.1m. He's kind of a tough one for me to predict. I think the team really likes him overall.

Melton is another interesting one. As you all are well aware I'm sure we basically stashed him as a CB this past summer. Seemed like a weird move, basically in effect it's allowed him to be a key ST player and to get some reps at WR due to injuries. But he is out of contract after this year, and I don't know if he has really shown enough to be brought back at this point

Savion is technically a WR, but he is not really in competition with Golden for reps IMO. And of course he just got here, he's going nowhere.

So the big question mark again remains with Doubs. He's in a tough spot. I don't think Doubs ever is going to become a proper "#1" for anyone... and he's generally not a super splashy or "home run" type of player but he IS remarkably consistent. Look at his stats over his time with us, and each year is virtually identical, just a few percentage points of difference here and there. Incredibly steady player. That has some value for sure. And the last I heard, we were at least opening cursory talks about a contract extension...
BUT, I think ultimately we will probably get priced out. We are not exactly a high-volume passing first attack, and I think some other teams are probably going to look at his production here and think he can at worst become a "high end #2" if he joins a team that's throwing the ball around more. Just in recent years you've got guys like Dyami Brown, Curtis Samuel, Josh Palmer getting contracts in the ballpark of 10m AAV in free agency, and...Doubs isn't worse than those guys

Hard for me to say then. My gut says we get priced out of resigning Doubs. Melton, I don't know if we bring him back or not. What kind of deal would he require, does he want to test the waters elsewhere? In any case I'm guessing it's probably Watson, Reed, Golden, Wicks, Williams, but we usually will carry more than 5 (and Williams is basically a pseudo WR it seems lol). With that in mind I'm kind of curious to speculate/project what next season might look like with that competition...

If he was used consistently, Doubs is a relaible possession WR. But his use varies from week to week. I don't think the Packers are that keen on keeping him. Melton will probably resign with a reasonable contract. They need to lock up Watson and Reed. And I expect next year will be big for Golden, and Kraft will return, hopefully not long into next season.

It's a solid WR room, and I think all to very savvy drafting. It wasn't that long ago that the WR cupboard was bare after Adams left. Great turnaround!

 

[Magooch]

I really like Doubs on the whole, but yeah, all signs point to him being the odd man out here.

I don't claim to be a cap wizard by any stretch of the imagination, but I do know his current AAV is floating right around 1m per year. And when you consider the going rate for WRs these days, he will probably be able to make 10x that amount on a new contract.

And on top of that, there's really no marquee FA WRs coming up next year. The top by AAV (current) are Mike Evans, Christian Kirk, Deebo, Jakobi Meyers, and Lazard, and they're all pushing 30 or better.
When you consider Doubs' age (still just 25), there's just not a ton of competition there. In that ballpark you've got Dyami Brown, Tutu Atwell, Tylan Wallace, Wandale Robinson, John Metchie, Rondale Moore, Alec Pierce, Skyy Moore, Tyquan Thornton, George Pickens... Out of that bunch, I'd be surprised if Dallas lets Pickens hit the open market, but other than that you've got a lot of guys who are either A.) currently making ~10m per year or B.) older and/or worse than Doubs.

Unless he is willing to take a significant discount to stay, I just don't see it. And like I said, it's not like we have a huge passing volume in the first place. If we were really pass happy and/or not super deep at WR, maybe that's more likely, but he's probably looking at a situation where A.) He can make more money somewhere else; B.) he can play in an offense with a higher overall passing volume; and C.) He can go somewhere where he won't have so much competition for snaps/targets.

In a perfect world I think we'd be happy to keep him but it's just hard to see it working out. I don't think we can responsibly offer what it will take to keep him.

 

[tynimiller]

Doubs will get $10M/yr minimum and likely a deal in the $15M/yr range honestly....

 

[tynimiller]

Let me be clear, it isn’t because that is what I think we should pay or it’s what he should be worth. The league in general though supports it being close if not there.
Just like I predicted Lazard would get $10 a year minimum and folks came unglued. Just is what the league indicates.

I think a world exists if the market isn’t moving someone gets him around 10 but don’t be shocked at his age and his production….

 

[Thirteen Below]

Melton's an RFA next year, and he's only making $1.3. Someone's going to offer him more than that, and it just remains to be seen how much more and whether Green Bay thinks it's worth that to keep him. I'm not sure what the "sweet spot" would be, but I don't think he does enough things to pay double digits.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

Melton's an RFA next year, and he's only making $1.3. Someone's going to offer him more than that, and it just remains to be seen how much more and whether Green Bay thinks it's worth that to keep him. I'm not sure what the "sweet spot" would be, but I don't think he does enough things to pay double digits.

I would hope the Packers don't overpay to keep Melton. Sure, he can play 3 positions. But 2 of them, WR & KO return, he's not even close to starter level and the 3rd (CB), he's yet to play a snap in a regular season game.

Great guy, versatile, but by no means worth more than maybe $1M over vet. min.

 

[milani]

I would hope the Packers don't overpay to keep Melton. Sure, he can play 3 positions. But 2 of them, WR & KO return, he's not even close to starter level and the 3rd (CB), he's yet to play a snap in a regular season game.

Great guy, versatile, but by no means worth more than maybe $1M over vet. min.

I could see Melton signing with the Raiders. They may think he is the next Davante.

 

[Poppa San]

I could see Melton signing with the Raiders. They may think he is the next Davante.

For his money? THAT would get us a decent comp pick.