Welcome to the NFC North version of Optimus Fantasy’s Team Previews! Today, we’re looking at the Green Bay Packers. In order to best know where we’re going, we often need to study where we’ve been. With that in mind, I will cover what the team looked like in 2024, fantasy significant changes to philosophy and personnel, and what I expect from the team in 2025. Your fantasy drafts are coming. Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.

The Green Bay Packers in 2024

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Team Stats
PROE	-8.28 –
4th Down Go For It!	16.07
Target GINI	0.5033
Rushing GINI	0.7215
Plays/Game: Offense	60.4

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Let’s start off by defining a few things, shall we?

Note: Any stat highlighted green with a “+” means it’s significantly, at least 1 standard deviation, above average. Any stat highlighted red with a “-“ means it’s significantly below average. If the stat is highlighted in blue and doesn’t have a symbol, it is within the standard deviation for that stat.

PROE – Pass Rate Over Expectation

2nd and 1 for the offense? Sure makes sense to run. 3rd and 12? Yup, absolutely reasonable to pass. PROE measures how often a team passed the ball when we would “expect” them to run. Such as on 2nd and 1. Obviously, this is our expectation, and part of the strategy is to do the unexpected. So it’s not a perfect encapsulation. However, over 17 games, this gives us a general idea of how an offensive coaching staff envisions their offensive strengths.

4th Down – Go For It!

It’s kinda just what it sounds like. Unlike PROE, there’s no “expectation” to this stat. Of all 4th downs, this is how often a team chose to go for it. Higher rates mean an offense has more chances to accumulate fantasy points. Conversely, it’s not as great for kickers. 

Target GINI

This is where my background in economics comes out. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Target GINI is how concentrated a passing attack is among pass-catching targets. A Target GINI of 1 means every target went to one player. Perfectly evenly distributed targets among players result in a Target GINI of 0. 

Rushing GINI

The same as Target GINI, but for rushing. So a Rushing GINI of 1 means one player had 100% of the rushing attempts. A Rushing GINI of 0 means every player received an equal number of rushing attempts.

“Ok, I get what GINI is, but how is it helpful for us?” You know, you’re really great with these questions. Are you sure you’re not a fantasy football expert? At any rate, these metrics tell us how concentrated or siloed a team’s passing and rushing attacks are. For fantasy, we’re looking for them both to be as close to 1 as possible.

Plays/Game: Offense

Literally just what it sounds like, this is an average of how many plays per game a team’s offense runs. The idea is that more offensive plays equal more opportunities for our players to score fantasy points. Simple enough, right?

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Top Performers (HPPR 2024)
Jordan Love	QB17
Josh Jacobs	RB5
Emanuel Wilson	RB45
Jayden Reed	WR26
Romeo Doubs	WR59
Dontayvion Wicks	WR72
Tucker Kraft	TE9
Brandon McManus	K26

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Significant Offseason Changes from ’24 to ’25

Lost: Nobody.

Added: Matthew Golden

I should be surprised that Green Bay didn’t lose anyone, but this is Green Bay. They don’t let players go even when they probably should. In the draft pick heard ’round the Aaron Rodgers-sphere, Matthew Golden figures to play a prominent role right from the get-go.

Green Bay’s offensive line is the definition of good-but-not-great. That’s not a knock in any way. There’s a lot of highly drafted talent waiting in the wings who could push them to a new level. 

The front office is completely unchanged from ’24 to ’25, and we can expect the schemes to stay largely the same as well. So everything stays the same in Green Bay because that’s what Green Bay does.

Looking Ahead to the Green Bay Packers in 2025

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Lou’s Confidence Level 1 – 5
Jordan Love	3
Josh Jacobs, Emanuel Wilson	5
Matthew Golden (R), Romeo Doubs, Jayden Reed	2
Tucker Kraft	3
Brandon McManus	4

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Lou’s 2025 HPPR Rankings
Jordan Love	QB17
Josh Jacobs	RB7
Emanuel Wilson	RB57
Matthew Golden (R)	WR38
Romeo Doubs	WR58
Jayden Reed	WR60
Tucker Kraft	TE10
Brandon McManus	–

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Week	Opponent	Expected W/L
1	Detroit	L
2	Washington	L
3	@ Cleveland	W
4	@ Dallas	W
5	BYE	–
6	Cincinnati	W
7	@ Airzona	W
8	@ Pittsburgh	L
9	Carolina	W
10	Philadelphia	L
11	@ New York Giants	L
12	Minnesota	W
13	@ Detroit	L
14	Chicago	W
15	@ Denver	W
16	@ Chicago	L
17	Baltimore	W

Lou’s projected 2025 “fantasy season” record: 9-7

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OK, Now For the Important (Non-Kicker) Packers

“Lou, you didn’t rank Brandon McManus!” Very astute, and you are correct. I’m a big believer in saying, “I don’t know,” when someone asks me about things I’m ignorant about. I’m kicker-dumb. So if you’re here looking for insight on kickers, I’m very sorry. Green Bay has a decent offense, and they like McManus. That’s about all I’ve got. 

For a team with as little turnover as Green Bay had from 2024 to 2025, there’s an awful lot of mystery as we turn our attention to ’25. Which WRs, if any, will step up? Heck, are any WRs healthy enough to play? Is the ’23 or ’24 version of Jordan Love the real version? Will Tucker Kraft continue his breakout, or remain in hit-and-miss TE1 territory? I’ll try to hit as many as I can, but it’s a lot.

With Love, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. In ’23, he threw the ball like crazy because they didn’t have anyone who could run the ball well. In ’24, they had Josh Jacobs, who’s sublime at it. In addition, Love suffered an injury in the first game of the season, and it impacted him all year, so ’24 is likely his floor. 

Unfortunately, the WR corps isn’t as easy a boondoggle to untangle. Christian Watson is on PUP thanks to tearing his ACL late last year, Dontayvion Wicks is dealing with a calf injury that popped up in late July, Jayden Reed is in a walking boot (Matt LaFleur said Week 1 wasn’t guaranteed for him), and even Romeo Doubs is now dealing with a hopefully minor back injury. There’s still time for everyone outside of Watson to heal up before the season starts, but this isn’t what you want to see in mid-August.

To add still another layer of complication, the Green Bay passing game is incredibly “flat.” All I mean by the term “flat” is that the Packers evenly distribute the targets among pass-catchers.

Unlike the teams at the bottom of the league for Target GINI, Green Bay didn’t suffer any major injuries to its pass-catching corps until very late in the season. As it was, the top target-earner, Wicks, only earned 6 more targets (76) than Kraft (70), who was the 4th option in the passing game. Good luck to you if you were trying to predict who the top target-earner on any given week would be.

Which brings us to Matthew Golden. The first Green Bay WR selected in the 1st round since the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Or maybe it was 2002? Either way, it was a long time ago.

If there’s going to be a WR who out-earns the rest in a significant way for targets, it looks like it will be Golden, who’s had a phenomenal training camp. Of course, it’s always difficult to trust rookie WRs, especially ones on teams that like to run the ball as much and as effectively as Green Bay does with Josh Jacobs.

When it comes to backup RBs in Green Bay, you’re probably best off not burning too many brain cells trying to figure it out. Before 2024, Matt LaFleur was notorious for splitting the work between RBs. If Jacobs does miss time, it’s reasonable to assume that LaFleur will return to his fantasy manager infuriating ways. So you can leave Marshawn Lloyd on the waiver wire where he belongs.

If There is a League Winner In Green Bay, It’s…

A tight end?

That’s kind of wild to think about, but there’s enough smoke coming off Tucker Kraft that we might just be looking at the next great receiving TE for fantasy. The most telling indicator of future success is athleticism, and Tucker Kraft has it in spades with a 9.67 Relative Athletic Score (RAS). “So he’s got that going for him.” Which I cannot not hear in Bill Murray’s Caddyshack voice.

Note: If you’re not following Kent Lee Platte on your favorite social media site, you’re doing NFL Draft season wrong.

Another leading indicator, something that indicates another thing will happen in the future, is if they can Do The Thing. Like it’s great and all if you get the opportunity, but what if you get it and can’t do anything with it? In 2024, Kraft was a top 10 TE five different times, and a top 6 TE three times. 

Deep League Draft Target

I know I just spent that time telling you not to worry about who the backup RB in Green Bay is, and it’s true! However, I also know that there comes a point every season where you just need somebody to throw into a starting spot thanks to injuries, byes, wonky coaching decisions, and who knows what else. With all that said, Emanuel Wilson is the Green Bay RB to own as a backup to Josh Jacobs. I would also accept Chris Brooks, as I’m sure both will get playing time in the event of a Jacobs injury.

With a FantasyPros ADP of 332 for Wilson and no ADP at all for Brooks, you can probably monitor both from the waiver wire until you feel your roster has an open spot ready for them.

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Lou Brunson is a Senior Analyst and THE social media brains for Optimus Fantasy. Find his dynasty stylings on right here and at draftbuddy.com.