The Green Bay Packers are widely viewed as a legitimate Super Bowl contender, thanks in large part to Jordan Love’s emergence following a dominant first season as the starting quarterback in 2023.
General manager Brian Gutekunst and the Packers bolstered Love’s supporting cast by signing former NFL rushing champion Josh Jacobs early in free agency, and has built an electrifying young supporting cast around one of the league’s promising young quarterbacks.
Last season, Love passed for 4,159 yards with 32 touchdowns to 11 interceptions, while guiding the Packers to an appearance in the NFC Divisional Round of the NFL Playoffs, falling just short of upsetting the San Francisco 49ers for a berth in the NFC Championship Game.
But, one of Love’s most explosive weapons could be in for an even more prolific season in 2024 than we have seen from him to date.
Christian Watson the Packers’ Bounce-Back Star for 2024?
Christian Watson showed plenty of promise as a rookie, when he caught 41 passes for 611 yards and seven touchdowns in 2022.
However, for as optimistic as the Packers were about Watson in Love’s supporting cast, his sophomore NFL campaign was largely derailed by hamstring injuries.
This year, CBS Sports’ Chris Trapasso lists Watson as the Packers’ young player most likely to rebound in 2024.
“To summarize,” Trapasso writes of Watson’s second NFL season. “Watson found he had “20% asymmetry in the hamstring muscle between his right and left legs, which meant his left hamstring was 20% stronger than his right one.” Because of that, his weaker right hamstring simply couldn’t keep up with the explosive capabilities in his stronger left hamstring, which led to him missing 11 games over the past two seasons.
“He’s now worked to close that gap to possibly under 10% asymmetry. And if both of Watson’s legs will cooperate in 2024, look out. Packers quarterback Jordan Love had elite-level production in the final eight games of 2023: 70.2% completion rate, 7.71 yards per attempt with 18 touchdowns and … one interception.”
Having Watson back in the fold is going to help Love and the Packers’ offense, especially after Jayden Reed, Romeo Doubs, and Dontayvion Wicks all combined for 2,048 yards and 20 touchdown catches.
A healthy Watson with the plethora of young receiver talent around Love could prove to be a winning and prolific formula for the Packers’ offense in 2024.
