Packer Central

Jayden Reed Receiving, Rushing Toward NFL History

With the Packers getting ready to face the Rams on Sunday, Jayden Reed is closing in on a statistical feat that hasn’t been accomplished in almost 40 years.

Bill Huber

Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jayden Reed catches a pass against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.
Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jayden Reed catches a pass against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. / William Glasheen/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – In four games, Green Bay Packers receiver Jayden Reed has 336 receiving yards and 91 rushing yards.

With another productive game on Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams, Reed would accomplish something that hasn’t been done in the NFL for almost 40 years.

In NFL history, only five players have had at least 400 receiving yards and 100 rushing yards in the first five games of the season.

It’s a feat that hasn’t been accomplished since long before the turn of the millennium: Roger Craig (1985), Paul Hofer (1980), Timmy Brown (1965), Pro Football Hall of Famer Frank Gifford (1959) and Wilbur Moore (1943).

Not surprisingly, Reed hadn’t heard of any of those players. After all, he was negative-15 years old when Craig did it with the San Francisco 49ers.

Also not surprisingly, he doesn’t care about individual accolades.

“Nah, not really to me,” Reed said on Thursday. “I’m just out there doing my job and doing whatever it takes for us to be at the best we can be. That’s definitely great company to be in, for sure, but I always put my team goals in front of my personal goals.”

Reed is coming off a monster game in spearheading the Packers’ big rally against the Vikings last week. He caught seven passes for 139 yards. With Green Bay trailing 28-0, his touchdown catch got the rally started – and woke up a slumbering crowd. He had back-to-back catches of 21 and 42 yards on the final touchdown drive.

“He’s a pretty low-key guy in the locker room, in the meeting room, but on the field, he’s a wild man,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said. “He gets the ball in his hands, he wants to make plays, he wants to be explosive, and you can obviously see that in his play. Anytime he gets the ball, he’s got the potential to score.

“So, he’s a fun guy to be around, a fun guy to coach. You definitely see that fire, that intensity and that focus with him when he’s out on the field. I thought at that time [of the touchdown], the way that game was going, we needed something to go our way. And we had that play on the special teams and then, obviously, getting that touchdown was huge before half.”

Last year as a rookie, he led the Packers with 64 receptions and 793 yards. At the unofficial quarter-pole of this season, Reed leads the team with 17 receptions for 336 yards. He is sixth in the NFL in yards and fourth with 19.8 yards per catch.

No Packers player has finished the season with even 800 receiving yards since Davante Adams’ 1,553 yards in 2021. Reed – and this is obviously one of those way-too-early projections – is on pace for 1,428 receiving yards and 387 rushing yards. That would be 1,814 total yards, a figure topped only by Ahman Green in 2003 (2,250 yards) and 2001 (1,981 yards) in Packers history.

Reed is 34th in the NFL in receptions but tied for first with seven catches of 20-plus yards. With a pair of big runs, he’s No. 1 with nine gains of 20-plus yards.

“Just understanding the playbook” has been the biggest difference, Reed said. “From that standpoint being more confident. When you know what you’re doing, you can play faster. I just think that’s helping me out tremendously.

“And the guys around me, we’re all playing for each other, so I can’t do what I’m doing without all the other 10 guys out there with me. Credit to those guys to help each other, and coaches do a great job, as well, preparing us.”

Of course, Reed has goals. But history isn’t anywhere near the forefront of his mind and numbers aren’t his motivation.

“It’s really my purpose, just motivating people around me, being there for my teammates, knowing that they know I’ve got them always,” Reed said.

“The reason I do this, I love it, first and foremost. My dad, he loved watching me do it, so always having that in the back of my mind. And for my family, really, just continue to do it for my family and my teammates and everybody that believes in me and also the people that doubted me. So, that’s the reason I do it.”

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.