The fantasy football landscape shifts each week, bringing fresh opportunities and unexpected challenges that separate the prepared from the pretenders. Savvy managers know that last week’s performance tells only part of the story, and diving deeper into the underlying metrics reveals the accurate picture.
This week presents some intriguing decisions. Here’s insight about key Green Bay Packers players heading into their matchup with the Minnesota Vikings to help you craft a winning lineup.
Jordan Love, QB
Jordan Love didn’t play last week with the concussion, and the Packers locked themselves into the NFC’s seven seed, making this week a meaningless one for them.
Career Rates
- 2023: 0.47 fantasy points per pass, 13.4% of points via the rush, 7.2 YPA
- 2024: 0.50 fantasy points per pass, 6.1% of points via the rush, 8.0 YPA
- 2025: 0.49 fantasy points per pass, 6.8% of points via the rush, 7.7 YPA
He’s fine, but is he progressing? Do the Packers want him to progress or is the vision to see him be a high-floor option that guides a team built around the ground game and a stingy defense?
I think Love’s best fantasy seasons are in front of them, though I would be surprised if he exploded in a meaningful way in 2026. You entered this season expecting in the neighborhood of 4,000 passing yards, and 30 touchdowns with marginal running numbers, and I think that’s the right zip code for next season as well.
He’s a low-end starter in deeper leagues or a high-end streamer in shallow ones: a good option with upside, but not a league winner as this system is currently constructed.
Malik Willis, QB
There is no more obvious name to keep an eye on among QBs already in the league who will be changing addresses.
Malik Willis looked the part in the blowout loss to the Ravens on Saturday night, completing 18-of-21 passes for 288 yards and a touchdown on top of two scores and 60 yards on the ground.
The Liberty product isn’t perfect, but he has that fast-twitch reaction that allows him to threaten defenses in a unique way, and he has likely earned himself a pretty penny this season by proving more than competent when in the pocket (22-of-27 for 334 yards and two TDs).
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His rookie deal expires when this season ends, and he’ll turn 27 in May. Is he a franchise QB? Probably not. Is he one of the 32 best to play the position with the athleticism that gives him top-15 QB upside if he lands in the right spot?
I think so.
We saw Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, and Trevor Lawrence all drafted outside the top 100 picks this summer and deliver strong returns. That could be the case here: I’ll be happy to scoop up cheap shares with the thought being that he’s a more well-rounded QB in this range than Justin Fields was: there’s no clear path to failure at the moment.
The “draft two QBs for one spot” strategy has gained some momentum in recent years, and if you wanted to put Willis, pending his landing spot, with a Jared Goff type in the second half of your draft, I’m prepared to green-light it.
Emanuel Wilson, RB
Emanuel Wilson hasn’t really gotten the chance to show what he is at this level, and Saturday night was a disaster for all things attached to the Green Bay backfield. Still, we do have a 224-carry sample of him, averaging 4.6 yards per attempt and an 82.9% catch rate across those three seasons.
Malik Willis is the young Packer who is going to generate interest this offseason. But Wilson is entering restricted free agency and could end up catching the eye of a team in a backup sort of role, where he is getting used more than he has up to this point.
Heck, maybe that’s the case if he stays in town. It’s clear that Josh Jacobs has worn down to a degree, and while this coaching staff has leaned into the bellcow mentality of late, maybe we see more of a 65/35 sort of split next season.
I won’t enter 2026 with a standalone projection for Wilson in terms of average-sized leagues, but I think he’ll be draftable if he stays in Green Bay and potentially gain value should a team with a less defined RB room poach him.
Josh Jacobs, RB
I don’t want to say that a running back with north of 2,100 career touches coming off a season with 337 and zero DNPs was destined to have health issues, but we always need to be aware of where specific players sit on the age curve.
I get it, I get it. Christian McCaffrey has been great, and Derrick Henry peaked in this very game, but those are exceptions to a rule that largely holds: volume wears down most in this sport. Whether it is over the course of a season or a decade, eventually those car crashes turn into ailments.
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Josh Jacobs has been battling knee/ankle issues this season, and it’s shown over the past two weeks (16 carries for 39 yards with a long run of seven). Game script and time of possession issues were there (Green Bay ran 31 fewer plays than Baltimore in the first 30 minutes), but Jacobs ran only twice for one yard in the first half.
Don’t worry, he rebounded by turning his two second-half carries into two yards after the break.
The Packers only had seven RB carries in the loss, and that’s not going to happen a ton, but this is a good lesson to be reminded of: the age curve is real.
Our minds shift toward the outliers, but there is a risk factor for all these heavily used running backs, and floor potential increases as the importance of the matchup for us increases.
Emanuel Wilson will probably get more work next year than he did this year next to Jacobs. Still, with the veteran having two years left on his deal, you can enter 2026 with the expectation for him to be featured in a way that lands him comfortably inside of the top-15 at the position.
Christian Watson, WR
Christian Watson found paydirt for 39 yards out on Malik Willis’ second pass of the game last week against the Ravens and finished with another strong outing (5-113-1 with a 24% target share).
Maybe it’s the first name? We seem to say the same thing (at a lower level, of course), for Watson as we do McCaffrey: when he’s on the field, you feel great about the spot you’re in as a fantasy manager.
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This was the third time in five games in which the big playmaker has at least 80 receiving yards and a score. He’ll play his age-27 season out in the final year of his deal and see how things play out, but for 2026, how can you not like what you’ve seen?
The 18-yard aDOT this season (16.8 for his career) naturally carries with it risk, never mind the obvious health red flags in this profile. There are plenty of reasons to tread lightly, but the upside is enough to suck me in as long as I can draft two receivers I feel good about ahead of him while solidifying my starting lineup “safer” plays.
Jayden Reed, WR
I often say that we don’t know how this Green Bay offense is going to play out, and I stand by that. But you have to be on the field to have my interest, and Jayden Reed, no matter the circumstances, isn’t being given that opportunity, and that doesn’t appear likely to change.
Reed has been on the field for 45.7% of the offensive snaps this season in games he’s been active for, and even if you remove the game in which he left early, his rate (54.7%) is still below his career norm (57.5%).
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He’s caught 19-of-22 targets this season and has a 29+ yard catch in three straight games. You can’t tell me that there isn’t something in this profile, but we are pretty clearly in a need-to-see-it-to-believe-it pattern.
Christian Watson has established himself as the go-to option when healthy, and Tucker Kraft certainly proved himself to be a well-above-average threat at the tight end position.
I’ll have exposure to Reed when he falls in drafts this summer, but I’m not highlighting him on cheat sheets; that’s for sure.
Romeo Doubs, WR
Romeo Doubs, as a little Cade Otton, felt like an effective playmaker when the injury report in Green Bay was loaded with names, but was deprioritized otherwise.
With Christian Watson active, Doubs hasn’t been able to earn targets at a high level, never mind when Tucker Kraft and Jayden Reed are in the mix.
If the Packers were to embrace a high-PROE offense, maybe Doubs gets another chance to hit our lineups on a semi-weekly basis, but they’ve shown no desire to do so to this point. He’s earned under five targets in five of his past six games, and that has me uninterested in him for next season as long as this pass-catching nucleus is healthy come the draft season.
Luke Musgrave, TE
Josh Whyle ran seven more routes than Luke Musgrave last week and earned the only tight end target for the Packers in their blowout loss at the hands of the Ravens on Saturday night.
It’s hard to do, but I honestly think that Tucker Kraft’s future value has risen just as much over the past month, with him not playing as much as he did when he was on the field. In his absence, Green Bay has shown no interest in involving the TE position, a stark contrast to how they operated when he was healthy.
They value him, not that spot on the field. He’s going to be my singular target at the position, assuming his recovery stays on track, when looking to do anything but stream the position in 2026.
