Who will help the Packers replace Romeo Doubs on money downs?

Posted by Admin May 9, 2026 NFL

Romeo Doubs’ departure isn’t really about his volume numbers.

Sure, he led the Packers in targets, receptions, and yards, but all of those numbers come with caveats. He was more than 100 yards behind Tucker Kraft when Kraft was lost for the season, and Doubs’ target share cratered pretty much the instant Christian Watson made his debut. As far as volume numbers are concerned, Doubs’ position at the top is more of a technicality than a situation where the Packers are going to have to fill a big void. This isn’t going to be like the post-2021 departure of Davante Adams.

But the Packers will have some work to do to account for Doubs’ absence, especially in the clutch situations of third and fourth downs.

My APC colleague Dusty Evely likes to refer to a certain kind of receiver as a “bucket getter.” These are the guys you turn to when you’ve absolutely gotta have it. Think of them as Max McGee’s proverbial “whiskey drinkers,” the players who find a way to get it done when the chips are down.

By and large, Doubs was that player for the Packers last year. In 18 games (including playoffs), Doubs was targeted 34 times on third and fourth down. Christian Watson was a distant second with 23 targets on those downs.

And Doubs was productive, too. Throwing his way resulted in 18 first downs and four touchdowns. He got buckets, in short.

That’s a significant role to fill. Someone has to be the moneymaker when your back is against the wall, and last season it was Doubs.

Who will it be in 2025? There’s reason for hope. Though he couldn’t match Doubs’ volume on a season-long basis due to his ACL recovery, Christian Watson was right there with him in games where they both were on the field. From Week 8 through the end of the season, Doubs was targeted 25 times on third and fourth downs, while Watson received 23 targets. What’s more, Watson turned his targets into big yardage; though Doubs recorded one more catch (15 to Watson’s 14), Watson piled up 262 yards to Doubs’ 190, an average of 18.7 yards per catch just on third and fourth down.

But in the playoffs, Doubs showed how important he was — and what kind of shoes his former teammates will have to fill. On the money downs in the Packers’ lone playoff game of 2025, Doubs recorded five catches on seven targets, as many catches as every other player on the Packers combined. It’s one thing to match Doubs over the course of the season, but the playoff disparity shows pretty clearly, I think, the gap in how Jordan Love viewed his receivers.

There’s a significant opportunity here. Someone has to step up into that role, and they should have plenty of chances to do it. For all that Doubs lacked as a receiver in size or explosiveness, he was slippery and had a good sense of how to work himself open on important downs. The next player who can match those skills will carve out a nice role for himself in a hurry.