Yes. We were anomalously bad in that area last year, and we'll move closer to the mean.

I also think we'll throw fewer than the 479 passes we threw last year.

The excessive number of dropped passes was the #1 drag on our offense and cost us more points than any other single issue. If we had only been AVERAGE, at dropping 3.6% of the passes, we'd have won another game or two. Our average was 6.2%. 100 passes, six drops. That's about 3 games, and two drops per game, and most of those drops killed possessions.

"The coaching staff will also be emphasizing improvement in this area."

The common thread for almost all receivers having an infection of the "drops" was their new receiver coach Ryan Mahaffry, who never coached WRs in the NFL before. Prior to the promotion in 2024, he was a Quality Control Assistant, and then two years as assistant OL coach.

Coaching is instrumental in discipline, focus and on field performance. Hopefully Ryan ups his coaching performance too, with a year under his belt.

" This should increase his accuracy and that should help make his passes more catchable." Silly take. If the balls weren't catch-able, it would not be considered a drop.

Reason number 6 that the receivers should catch the ball better than last year: With signing three more receivers, there will be more competition which should drive all the receivers to catch the ball, if they want to play!

Sixth reason: Regression to the mean.

I expect the WRs to play better. They were better in 23 and have the same personnel with Golden, as well as internal improvement. I also expect Love to remove even the doubters/haters comments and be an obvious top 5 QB.

Off topic: I also expect a better front 4. Not because the players Gute got ended up being good, but because they couldn’t be worse than last year.

MLF has been lackadaisical about hiring the best, most experienced positional coaches with proven track records.
@ least 3, maybe more, have been promoted and have/had no experience in their current roles. Mahaffey had no experience coaching receivers, Mannion has no experience coaching QBs, Stenavich from OL coach to OC? He is an OC in name only.
I agree with another poster that Mahaffey's inexperience had to have an effect on the poor play of the receivers last year.

@Greg C-'growing from within' has been the exact problem, particularly among the coaching staff under MLF.
MLF is very insular and retains poor-performers; Barry, Bisaccia, Rebrovich & possibly Mahaffey.It is up to MLF to scour the NFL world for the best, most proven coaches. He has also consistently promoted those without experience to important roles, ie., Mahaffey, Mannion and Stenavich. The receivers did very poorly last year-their coach had never coached receivers.

-Getsy and Hackett were other under-whelmers.

I find all this talk about the problem being our WR coach had no experience coaching WRs in the NFL interesting. I am not discounting that as a possible reason for the dropped balls. But it reminds me of when the Packers promoted a coach to WR coach without WR coaching experience. That was Edgar Bennett. He was a RB for many years and a RB coach for 5. I liked the move because he could teach the WRs to run with the ball. Plus yes he had experience catching the ball. Oh by the way he went onto OC and has been a WR coach since.

Great question. The answer is it depends how the depth chart looks. We drafted two WRs early for a reason. Dropped passes can not be tolerated. I wouldn't be surprised to see Reed Golden and Williams as the top three on the depth chart. Sooner rather than later.

Wicks has a good first move but he is relatively slow and he just drops way too many balls. We have good depth and it is a good problem to have. The reality is if some of the these guys haven't learned how to catch by now; it is probably not a good idea to assume they will be any better this year.

"The Green Bay Packers were among the worst teams in the NFL in 2024 at dropping passes."

Actually, it seems they were really good at it.

If you look at NFL.com draft profiles...
Romeo Doubs: "Room for improvement with catch focus through contact"
Jayden Reed: "Loses catch focus working into the middle of the field."
Dontayvion Wicks: "Focus drops have been an issue for him over the last two seasons, but they seemed to impact his overall confidence in 2022."
Christian Watson: "Catch focus is below average."
Add to these...
Matthew Golden: "Poor hand timing causes focus drops underneath."
Savion Williams: "Below-average ball-tracking talent to run under deep throws.
Lack of focus and catch technique leads to drops."

Yes, I've just pulled out the comments on drops, and many of those players also have comments in their scout that talk about being skilled hands-catchers and so on. But scouts saw enough to comment that drops are part of their game.

After everything, we dropped about 1 more pass per game than average. And yes, most of those drops killed a possession.

Things that kill possessions.

1) Turnovers. 100% of turnovers kill a possession.
2) Incomplete passes on 3rd down.
3) Major penalties, like holding or unnecessary roughness. These will almost always put you in a down and distance that's hard to come back from.
4) Sacks, especially on 3rd down.

I was reading a little blurb the other day that said the Packers had more completions of 25 yards downfield than any other team. Also, our yards/attempt was among the league's best. We go deep.