The 2023 season was supposed to be a bit of a step back for the Packers in their first season without Mr. Aaron Rodgers. After all, the squad limped to an 8-9 finish the previous year, snapping their three-season streak of 13-win campaigns.

Then something funny happened: Jordan Love started looking a lot like one of the best QBs in football. The team's second-half renaissance culminated with a 48-32 beatdown over the Cowboys in Jerry World before the 49ers officially ended their season for the third time since 2019.

It'd make a lot of sense if Love and company manage to build on last season's surprising success, but then again this won't be the exact same group that took the field throughout 2023. A quick overview of the Packers' fantasy-relevant coaching staff and major offseason moves (QB/RB/WR/TE) to this point:

Pretty, pretty, pretty good continuity for an offense that *checks notes* posted the NFL's second-highest mark in EPA per play from Week 9 on last season. Turns out that No. 10 guy is quite good at football.

Green Bay Packers Fantasy Football Outlook: Position by Position

Quarterback

Love's first season as a starter didn't start out all that hot. He completed under 60% of his passes in five of his first seven starts, didn't have THAT many more TDs (11) than INTs (8), and generally was making the easy look hard inside head coach Matt LaFleur's ever-well-schemed offensive attack.

And then seemingly overnight, Love and this Packers offense turned into one of the more lethal passing attacks in football. The change was nothing short of remarkable:

Love in Weeks 1-8 vs. Weeks 9-Divisional Round

  • EPA per dropback: +0.030 vs. +0.269
  • Completion percentage over expected: -5.1% vs. +5.3%
  • PFF pass grade: 62.8 vs. 90.7
  • Passer rating: 78.2 vs. 108.3
  • Yards per attempt: 6.4 vs. 7.8

The man went from anyone's idea of an objectively mediocre to bad QB … to PFF's top-graded passer and a top-two most accurate and efficient QB when looking at CPOE and EPA! Not too shabby for a first-year starter.

So what changed? Well, Love certainly deserves plenty of credit for his own personal improvements, and it'd make sense if his bevy of rookie WRs and TEs also simply got better down the stretch.

January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love (10) during the second quarter in a 2024 NFC divisional round game against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

That said: There were three key schematic shifts that occurred in this offense from the first to the second half of the season:

  • Play-action rate: Green Bay was a middling offense in play-action usage (23.3%, 18th) during Weeks 1-8, but boomed to the top of the league (28.5%, 5th) down the stretch. Guess who ranked among the NFL's top-three QBs in yards (1,603) and TDs (12) from play-action last year?
  • Pass-play rate: This offense was actually quite willing to throw the rock during the first half of the year (64.7%, 6th), but morphed into more of a run-first unit (56.1%, 27th) once winter came around. Part of this was due to the Packers getting to play with a lead more often, although their dropback rate over expected tells a similar story.
  • Shift/motion rate: All of the cool kids seem to be moving their skill-position weapons all over the formation before the snap these days – so why wouldn't the Packers join them? Overall, they featured pre-snap shift/motion on a whopping 71.3% (5th) of their second-half snaps compared to 59.1% rate (9th) during the first eight weeks of the season.

Reminder: Both splits are made up of a half-season of football. You can't seriously watch Love play and conclude the turnaround was just luck.

Add it all together, and this ridiculous end-of-season heater helped Love finish as the QB5 in fantasy points per game. Reminder: He had 83 career pass attempts prior to this season. Also note Love posted a more than solid 50-247-4 rushing line — he can scoot!

While it's not a guarantee Love maintains top-three standing in most passing efficiency metrics, he's already proven capable of providing a ceiling worth chasing in fantasy land and returns almost all key parties from this reigning top-12 supporting cast. It's tough to see him falling out of the fantasy QB1 conversation even with a slight fall back to Earth.

Bottom line: Love's affordable ADP (QB10, pick 96.1) is made all the merrier by the reality that none of his preferred pass-catchers are overly expensive, either. He marks the end of a tier featuring the position's proven, upside QB1 options; I'm happy to prioritize the rising (essentially) second-year starter when failing to come away with one of the position's big four options inside the first four rounds of fantasy drafts — I'm far more willing to wait on Love compared to guys like C.J. Stroud and Joe Burrow who are going 40 and 20 picks ahead of him in early drafts, respectively.

Running Back

It was surprising to see the Packers hand Jacobs a bag considering this is an organization that hasn’t gone out of its way to add high-ish-priced skill-position talent in free agency over the years.

Maybe things will work out. Jacobs commonly found himself next to guys like Tony Pollard and Nick Chubb when looking at the league’s best rushers in forcing missed tackles and picking up yards after contact during the first four seasons of his career. Jacobs is only 26 years old and is just one year removed from working as the NFL’s leading rusher.

That said: Jacobs was objectively one of the league’s least efficient rushers last season.

Jacobs among 49 RBs with 90-plus carries in 2023

  • PFF rush grade: 70.1 (No. 40)
  • Explosive run play rate: 3.9% (No. 48)
  • Yards per carry above expected: -0.37 (No. 41)
  • Yards per carry: 3.5 (No. 44)
  • Yards after contact per carry: 2.4 (No. 46)
  • Missed tackles forced per carry: 0.12 (tied for No. 43)

It’s tough to overly blame his dropoff on the offensive line considering the Raiders have ranked 14th and 13th in yards before contact per carry over the past two seasons. His percentage of carries with eight-plus defenders in the box wasn’t much different in 2023 (21.5%) compared to 2022 (20.6%) as well. Why was Zamir White so much better than Jacobs with his opportunities in the same offense?

Ezekiel f*cking Elliott was every bit as good as Jacobs on a per-carry basis last season for crying out loud. Austin Ekeler posted a faster ball carrier speed. Not great!

Maybe Jacobs was simply a helluva lot more injured throughout the season than anybody knew. Even then: His efficiency numbers have a long way to go before even approaching average, let alone returning to the upper tier of performers at the position. Sixth-year RBs haven’t been too dominant in fantasy land over the last decade's worth of action.

It'd make sense if Jacobs finds a new level of motivation in Green Bay; just realize the grass is seldom greener on the other side when RBs change teams in free agency.

Ultimately, bad yards per carry efficiency isn't that big of a deal in fantasy land. Alvin Kamara, Travis Etienne, Saquon Barkley, Rachaad White and Joe Mixon all finished as top-12 RBs in PPR points per game last season despite none averaging more than four yards per carry. Moving from the Raiders to the Packers is a pretty great upgrade in terms of offensive environment and scoring upside.

Jacobs should experience better times in fantasy land even without a big-time bounce-back in the efficiency department …

… as long as Lloyd and/or Dillon don't turn this into a committee.

Dillon himself isn't too big of a concern even though it's scary how similar his rushing efficiency numbers were to Jacobs last season. The bigger potential "issue" is Lloyd, who earned a "thicker Duke Johnson" comp from the great Dane Brugler and was one of the draft class' more productive receiving backs. Packers OC Adam Stenavich sure seemed to indicate that the USC product should be used early and often this season:

"No, I would like to get him out there as much as possible. He’s got a skill set that’s a little bit different than AJ’s, as far as his speed… It’ll be nice to get him the ball in space and just see what he can do, ‘cause I think he’s gonna add a good explosive element to the offense, for sure.”

LaFleur echoed the sentiment shortly after the draft: Lloyd is a legit threat to steal a decent amount of pass-down work inside of an offense that wasn't exactly overflowing with fantasy-friendly RB opportunities last season in the first place.

Bottom line: It's tough to be too down on Jacobs — he is projected for 294 combined carries and targets, after all — but I really struggle to see why he's being prioritized ahead of fellow inefficient RBs in good-to-great offenses like Travis Etienne, Rachaad White and Joe Mixon. Fading any RB with a decent chance to clear 300 touches is risky business, but his lack of a cemented pass-down role makes this feel like a dead zone-esque pick. Lloyd is the preferred handcuff and a decent late-round target; just realize he'd likely split things fairly evenly with Dillon should Jacobs miss any time.

Wide Receiver

The Packers have a league-low $11.5 million devoted to their WR room ahead of 2024, and yet they boast one of the league's more promising rooms as a whole thanks to their continued ability to nail day two and three picks at the position.

Now for the tricky part: What's the pecking order here?

Our best sample to draw from is probably Weeks 5-13. This featured the healthiest stretch of the season for Watson, who missed the final five regular season games and was limited in the playoffs due to a hamstring injury.

Packers WRs in Weeks 5-13

  • Doubs: 83% routes, 15% targets, 9.6 PPR points per game
  • Watson: 82% routes, 19% targets, 11.4 PPR points per game
  • Reed: 63% routes, 15% targets, 11.4 PPR points per game
  • Wicks: 34% routes, 10% targets, 6.6 PPR points per game

Note that Melton didn't receive his first career target until Week 15, and Heath also got more involved down the stretch as well. Doubs was the only Packers WR to run a route on at least 60% of the offense's dropbacks in both playoff games, as LaFleur was content to largely rotate his treasure chest of young talents.

Nov 12, 2023; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; A pass intended for Green Bay Packers wide receiver Christian Watson (9) is tipped by Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Patrick Peterson (20) before being intercepted by safety Keanu Neal (31) during the fourth quarter at Acrisure Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Philip G. Pavely-USA TODAY Sports

The bull and bear cases for Watson in particular:

  • Good: Watson looked like the No. 1 on this team during a rookie season that featured him scoring eight TDs in just four weeks at one point. He seemed ready to begin a similar streak last season with four scores in his final three games before getting injured.
  • Bad: The rising third-year receiver has already suffered three separate hamstring injuries since entering the league in 2022 and was easily the team's least efficient WR or TE in terms of passer rating when targeted. Part of that is due to the natural volatility that goes alongside a higher-aDOT role; just realize it's not a guarantee he will regain a true every-down role in this suddenly crowded passing game.

Ultimately, I agree with Fantasy Life Projections that paint Reed as the top target earner in Green Bay, but the discrepancy probably won't be huge, and it wouldn't be all that surprising if none of the involved parties finish ranked inside the position's top-24 WRs in PPR points per game … again.

Bottom line: The murkiness of this passing game is accordingly driving down the price of all parties involved in fantasy land. Accordingly, I'm especially fond of buying Doubs (WR54, pick 115.2 ADP) and Wicks (WR65, pick 142.7) at cost. Reed and Watson aren't complete stay-aways in an offense fully expected to (again) put up quality numbers through the air, but this feels far more like a 1.A/1.B/1.C/1.D situation than one through four — and that's before getting to the team's quality TEs.

Tight End

The Packers acquired a pair of Day 2 rookie TEs in the 2023 NFL Draft, and it turns out both are quite good at football.

One problem: We don't have a great split to work off that featured both players at full strength. While Musgrave was the featured option and maintained a near full-time role during the first 11 weeks of the season, it was Kraft who worked as the lead dog in the postseason when things mattered most.

How much of that was the Packers believing Kraft was the superior TE, and how much was that simply a factor of Musgrave playing through an abdominal injury?

Ultimately, I believe this will be more of a 50/50 split than what we saw at any point last season. Musgrave (7.4-yard aDOT) was used more downfield than Kraft (4.9), who was leaned on far more as a run blocker (50 snaps vs. 12) during the team's final two games of the season. Either look capable of returning borderline TE1 production with a starting job all to themselves, but for now the best chip is best laid on Musgrave thanks to his expected status as the prioritized pass-catcher.

It's too bad fantasy football doesn't simply have a "team TE" position; even then the Packers were one of 12 teams to devote fewer than triple-digit targets to their TEs last season, and as a whole they ranked 20th in PPR points from the position.

Bottom line: It's really tough to have one fantasy-viable TE in NFL offenses that are willing to even somewhat evenly rotate multiple bodies at the position. Fantasy Life Projections see this happening, and accordingly, neither Musgrave nor Kraft are more than late-round darts — but each would be HEAVILY prioritized on the waiver wire should the other miss any game time.

Packers 2024 Season Prediction 

The Packers dipped their toes into the college football waters to land new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley; his ability to improve a defense that was SHAKY for portions of 2023 will go a long way toward deciding if this squad can surpass their 9.5 win total.

I'm going to take OVER 9.5 wins as a backing toward Love taking another step forward in his second year as a starter inside a division starting two rookie QBs. The defense does indeed have plenty of early-draft-capital talent available; here's to hoping they manage to put things together in 2024 and beyond.

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