The Green Bay Packers have done a masterful job surrounding Jordan Love with young, ascending, and prolific homegrown talent, and this spring’s 2025 NFL Draft may have added the most impactful building block yet.
Love likely arrives to this spring’s OTAs with something to prove, looking to put last season’s underwhelming performance in the rearview mirror, and hoping to guide the Packers not just back to the postseason but on a legitimate run at the Lombardi.
Last season, Love battled through injuries and a revolving door at receiver as his pass-catchers struggled with their own inconsistency, but general manager Bian Gutekunst and the Packers may have added the game-changing weapon Love and Green Bay have been missing.
Matthew Golden’s Speed Could Spark Green Bay Packers’ Jordan Love
Pro Football Focus NFL analyst Dalton Wasserman put together a list of each team’s top bounce-back candidate for the 2025 season, including Love for the Packers.
“Love simply didn’t progress the way the Packers had hoped in 2024,” Wasserman writes for PFF. “For the first time in 23 years, the team selected a wide receiver in the first round — Matthew Golden — to better support Love in the passing game. Golden’s blazing speed should be a factor on vertical throws, but his ability to run safeties off could prove even more valuable. In 2023, Love earned an 87.8 passing grade on intermediate throws. That number dropped to 65.7 in 2024, ranking 35th out of 43 qualified quarterbacks.”
While the Packers led the league in explosive plays, with 38, Golden’s speed has the potential to ignite the offense and spark Love returning to form as one of the more exciting young quarterbacks across the NFL.
Golden ran the 40-yard dash in a blazing 4.29 seconds, most among receivers at the NFL Combine, after posting 13 deep catches last season at the University of Texas.
While Golden’s big-play ability is almost self-explanatory, the space that his speed has the potential to create for the likes of tigt end Tucker Kraft and the rest of the Packers’ receiving corps as well as running back Josh Jacobs out of the backfield could wind up being the biggest benefit for Love in 2025.
