The Green Bay Packers are going to draft more receivers next year (even before we see the ones they drafted this year)

Ted Thompson and Brian Gutekunst play in two ends of the receiver pool: rookies/low-end cheap veterans, or elite players. Right now, the Packers have no one to pay so draft picks it is.

Had the Baltimore Ravens not selected Rashod Bateman with the 27th pick in the 2021 NFL draft, they believed the Green Bay Packers would have. But the contract the Ravens handed to Bateman is exactly why the Packers are going to dip back into the receiver draft pool in 2026 without even knowing what the 2025 receiver class looks like.

When Brian Gutekunst has signed receivers, it has been cheap veterans like Sammy Watkins, Devin Funchess, or Mecole Hardman. These are small investments with modest upside and nearly no risk given the cost. It’s also the smart way to pay for competency at the receiver position. Avoid the middle class.

Meanwhile, the Houston Texans will pay Christian Kirk $18 million this year as a player the Jacksonville Jaguars wanted to get rid of so fast, they traded him for a seventh-round pick and an agreement to share their Paramount Plus password.

The middle class of NFL receivers is a dead zone, a place where bad and middling teams go to light money on fire to pay for replacement-level receivers or something close to it.

Green Bay doesn’t qualify, and one of the reasons is precisely because the front office avoids this pitfall.