Packers Add Another Receiver, Take TCU’s Savion Williams In Round 3

When Green Bay packers general manager Brian Gutekunst decides to address a weakness, he doesn’t mess around.

Gutekunst took three offensive linemen in 2021, 2022 and 2024. He took three wide receivers in 2022. And he overhauled his safety position after the 2023 campaign.

This year, the wide receiver group is getting another makeover.

The Packers selected TCU wideout Savion Williams in the third round of Friday’s draft. Green Bay took receiver Matthew Golden 24 hours earlier in the first round Thursday night.

“I didn’t think I’d be up here talking about taking two receivers,” Gutekunst said after selecting Williams. “But when he was up there, he was just another one of our staff favorites across the board”

Williams has terrific size, standing 6-foot-4 and weighing 222 pounds. During his five years at TCU, Williams played in 52 games, caught 137 passes for 1,655 yards (12.1) and had 14 touchdowns. Williams also ran the ball 62 times rushes for 384 (6.2) and six TDs. Played 52 games.

Many scouts compared him to Cordarrelle Patterson, a versatile player who’s carved out a 12-year career with six NFL teams.

“I just do whatever my team needs me to do,” Williams said. “Mostly, teams, they want me to play receiver but they like the fact they can move all around the formation doing things like that.”

On the flip side, Williams had a high number of drops at TCU and scouts questioned his ability to run the full route tree. Gutekunst said the Packers weren’t concerned with his hands and the tape showed far more good than bad.

“He’s a huge man, but his determination, his ability, his elusiveness, his power, his ability to break tackles, I just thought those were the first things that stuck out to you,” Gutekunst said. “Because they moved him all around in different ways, I thought there was a little bit of a rawness to his game as far as the polish as a route-runner, and things like that. But his ability to create separation and get behind guys vertically and catch the football, all those things I think, he just really seemed to fit what we’re trying to do.”

Williams joins a wide receiver group that needed plenty of help after a subpar 2024 season.

Jayden Reed led the team in receptions (55) for a second straight year and had a team-best 857 receiving yards. His six touchdown receptions ranked second.

Despite being the Packers’ top option in the passing game, though, there were seven games Reed had two catches, or fewer.

“I think that we could have done better from a staff perspective of trying to put him in some more advantageous situations where he could have produced those numbers, because he’s an explosive player and he’s one of those guys that you want to get the ball to, no doubt about it,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said recently of Reed.

Romeo Doubs ranked third on the team with 46 receptions, was third in receiving yards (601) and fourth in touchdowns. But Doubs also missed two games with concussions and another after he was suspended for going AWOL from the team.

Third-year man Dontayvion Wicks was an enormous disappointment in 2024. Wicks led the Packers in targets (76), but was just fourth in receptions (39) and fourth in receiving yards (415). His catch rate of 51.3% was the second worst in football among wideouts.

Christian Watson, the Packers’ fastest wideout, will likely miss much of the 2025 campaign after tearing his ACL in Green Bay’s regular season finale last year.

Bo Melton (17 catches) and Malik Heath (13) are deep down the depth chart.

LaFleur admitted recently that his receivers simply weren’t good enough in 2024. According to Pro Football Reference, the Packers had the third-highest number of drops in football last season (33) and the second-highest drop rate (6.9%).

Both Watson and Doubs are entering contract years, so the influx of young talent sets Green Bay up no matter how those contract situations unfold.”

“I don’t think when we go into the draft we try to put too much emphasis on that,” Gutekunst said of future contract negotiations. “We’re really trying to build the board with the right values and letting it come to us and follow the board. I think if you get in there and try to make decisions in the draft based too much of that stuff, you can get yourself in trouble and take the wrong guy.

“So we try to get the values right vertically and horizontally and then as the draft goes. There’s a lot of uncontrollables in the draft, you try to follow the board as best you can and that’s what we did tonight and that’s how it shook out.”