Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jayden Reed will undergo season-ending neck surgery, head coach Matt LaFleur confirmed Wednesday, officially closing the book on a 2026 campaign that lasted all of two plays. Reed was placed on injured reserve the same day, ending any speculation about a late-season return.
Reed was carted off the field after just the second play from scrimmage in Green Bay’s Week 2 win over the New York Jets on Sept. 20, strapped to a backboard with his helmet stabilized before being taken to a hospital. He had movement in his extremities but stayed overnight in New Jersey rather than traveling back with the team. LaFleur said Wednesday that while the injury will keep Reed out long-term, it is not believed to be career-threatening. “From my understanding no, but he will be out a significant amount of time,” LaFleur told reporters.
A Second Straight Lost Season for Reed
The neck injury marks the second consecutive year Reed has landed on injured reserve early in a season, continuing a pattern that has limited one of Green Bay’s most explosive playmakers to just nine regular-season appearances over the last two years. Reed broke his collarbone in Week 2 of the 2025 season while already playing through a fractured foot, and now a frightening neck injury has wiped out the bulk of his 2026 campaign before it ever got going. Through his first two healthy seasons, Reed topped the Packers in receiving both years and racked up 1,914 yards from scrimmage between his rookie debut and Christmas Day 2024. He has managed just 400 yards since.
LaFleur said the team went through a lengthy evaluation process, with multiple opinions gathered, before settling on surgery as the right course of action. There is no firm timetable for Reed’s return, though the move to IR guarantees he will miss at least Green Bay’s next four games — and with a season-ending designation now attached, that number effectively becomes the rest of 2026.
Market Already Shifting to Watson and Golden
Green Bay’s receiving math changed the moment Reed went down, and the betting market reacted almost immediately. With Reed sidelined, offensive coordination funnels more designed touches toward Christian Watson and Matthew Golden, while Tucker Kraft and depth option Skyy Moore absorb a larger share of the remaining targets. LaFleur has already pointed to Moore as the next man up in the receiver rotation now that Reed’s season is finished.
The early returns support the shift. Watson posted 19 targets through Green Bay’s first two games — one more than Golden — and has scored on each of his first three outings, racking up 284 receiving yards in that span. Golden, meanwhile, has played 82 to 86 percent of the offensive snaps across the Packers’ first three weeks and logged 153 receiving yards before adding a 100-yard, one-touchdown performance in Week 3 against Atlanta. Books moved quickly on the yardage markets tied to both players once Reed’s absence became official, with Watson’s receiving total climbing several points in a matter of days and Golden’s props drawing increased attention as the clear beneficiary of Reed’s vacated slot role.
The bigger complication for Green Bay’s offense is structural rather than personnel-driven. The Packers’ offensive line has been battered through three weeks, Jordan Love was pressured on 23 of his dropbacks in Green Bay’s 35-14 loss to Atlanta, and the running game has produced next to nothing in back-to-back outings. That instability means Watson and Golden are inheriting a larger target share inside an offense still trying to find rhythm, which cuts both ways for prop bettors — more volume for the receivers, but less certainty in a passing attack that leaned on 53 attempts just to stay competitive against the Falcons.
For bettors tracking Green Bay’s receiving market the rest of the way, Reed’s season-ending surgery removes a proven slot weapon and pushes the Packers further into a two-man show at wideout. Watson’s role as the clear WR1 by targets and Golden’s emergence as a true vertical threat both look more secure than they did three weeks ago, even if the offense around them remains very much a work in progress.
