The Green Bay Packers have an incredibly young wide receiver room with very little NFL experience. Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, and Samori Toure are the only receivers with multiple NFL snaps, and they are all second-year players. Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, and Grant Dubose were all drafted this year. Malik Heath was an undrafted free agent that was added this offseason and Bo Melton was added last year.
The only wide receiver that can be considered truly a veteran is Jeff Cotton, and he has just one offensive snap in a NFL regular season. However, he is the veteran leader at the position (at 26 years old) and is making a strong case for making the 53-man roster.
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Jeff Cotton Is the Veteran Leader of the Green Bay Packers Wide Receiver Room
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If Jeff Cotton were ever get a significant role on a NFL team, this year is his best chance. Given the Packers’ inexperience at wide receiver, and Grant Dubose’s injury, the 26-year old has a huge opportunity. He was originally signed as an undrafted free agent by the Los Angeles Chargers in 2020. He spent that season on the team’s practice squad.
In 2021, he signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Once again, he was assigned to the practice squad, but did appear in one regular season game with them. He spent training camp of 2022 with them as well, but was waived on August 30. Cotton was then signed by the Arizona Cardinals, but only spent two weeks with their practice squad before being released again.
The Packers signed Cotton to a reserve/future contract in January of this year and he is making the most of the opportunity, both as a player and a leader. Sports Illustrated‘s Bill Huber asked Cotton about his role in the wide receiver room:
“I’ve been around a lot of vets,” he said, “Keenan Allen, Marvin Jones, Marvin Hall, Zay Jones, C(hristian) Kirk and picked their brains and kind of take the advice they’ve given me and feed it to the young guys as much as I can.
“I’ve been around a lot of vets,” he said, “Keenan Allen, Marvin Jones, Marvin Hall, Zay Jones, C(hristian) Kirk and picked their brains and kind of take the advice they’ve given me and feed it to the young guys as much as I can.”
According to Huber, who was present at OTA’s earlier this week, Cotton scored two impressive touchdowns, including the “winning” score in the two-minute drill. Of the catch, Huber wrote:
“At Tuesday’s practice, Cotton scored the winning touchdown in a 2-minute drill with a leaping grab of Sean Clifford’s pass along the sideline in which he kept both feet inbounds. It would have been an impressive grab had it been made by Davante Adams or Christian Watson. Earlier in practice, he hauled in a scoring strike from Danny Etling.”
Cotton still has a long way to go before he is considered a lock for the 53-man roster. As fans have learned from Juwann Winfree, showing out in practice is one thing. Putting it together on the field is another. However, given the youth and inexperience of the room, if Cotton plays well in training camp and in preseason games, he very well could end up with a spot on the team.
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