Packers: Ranking receivers in their rookie seasons with Aaron Rodgers

What can previous rookie seasons of Green Bay Packers wide receivers tell us about this year’s first-year players?

For only the second time in the Aaron Rodgers era, the Green Bay Packers selected three wide receivers in this year’s draft.

With Jordy Nelson gone, having caught his final pass in a Packer uniform from (sob) Brett Hundley, the Packers will be counting on production from rookie receivers like never before. Beneath Davante Adams, Randall Cobb, and (to a lesser extent) Geronimo Allison on the depth chart, the experience at receiver ranges from minimal to nonexistent.

Fourth-rounder J’Mon Moore, fifth-rounder Marquez Valdes-Scantling and sixth-rounder Equanimeous St. Brown form a distinctly named trio vying for playing time.

Jake Kumerow, who scored on touchdowns grabs of 52 and 82 yards this preseason, has also never caught a pass in a real NFL game, but he’s been in the league as an undrafted rookie on a journey since 2015.

Based on No. 12’s decade as the starting QB, how has he connected with unproven wideouts? What can fans realistically expect from the likes of Moore, MVS, St. Brown, and *Kumerow?

Let’s find out by starting with the top performances by rookie receivers.

1. Davante Adams, 2014

A 12-4 season that ended in agony began with a fruitful draft class that included current starters Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, Corey Linsley and Davante Adams, now the team’s undisputed alpha receiver.

With Nelson and Cobb both surpassing 1,000 yards, the second-rounder was under no pressure to compete for Rookie of the Year honors. He reeled in 38 receptions for 446 yards and three touchdowns and did very well in a complementary role. The bad news? His good-not-great line of 38/446/3 marks the best season a rookie receiver has had with Rodgers.

2. Randall Cobb, 2011

It’s easy to forget that Cobb, another second-rounder, was electric as a returner in his rookie season; he scored on a punt as well as a kickoff.

As a receiver, he was overshadowed by Greg Jennings, Jordy, James Jones and Double D., but the Kentucky standout still managed 25/375/1, a healthy line for a rook who easily could’ve vanished in what may have been the deepest group of receivers in franchise history.

Cobb was very efficient in his limited role; those 25 catches were earned on just 31 targets for a catch rate of 80.6 percent.

3. Jordy Nelson, 2008

As the post-Favre years began, the Packers bolstered a receiving corps that featured Donald Driver, Greg Jennings and James Jones by adding Nelson, whose 122 receptions as a senior at Kansas St. remains a school record.

Nelson, the fifth pick of the second round, contributed 33/366/2 to an aerial attack on the rise. Rodgers made 1,000-yard receivers out of both Jennings and Driver, who combined for 14 touchdowns, and Nelson outperformed Jones’ 20/274/1 sophomore season. As Davante did years later, rookie White Lightning fulfilled his role as the third or fourth option for Rodgers.

4. Geronimo Allison, 2016 (Undrafted)

Though “Geronimo!” was never called during the ’16 draft, the lanky WR out of Illinois was more of a factor in the passing game than fellow rookie Trevor Davis, a fifth-rounder.

Despite not making his debut until Week 8, Allison made a little splash with 12/202/2 as a rook. He did his part behind Jordy, Adams, and Cobb on the depth chart as the team won its final eight games before losing in the NFC Championship. Geronimo’s progression will tell us a lot about how much the Packers will need impact from their neophyte receivers.

5. Ty Montgomery, 2015

Now a running back, Montgomery was a dynamic all-purpose weapon in high school and college, at Stanford, where he recorded over 2,000 receiving yards and 15 touchdowns.

Green Bay took him in the third round as a WR with versatility, and he had a decent line of 15/136/2 in his first season. Like Cobb, his catching percentage was excellent, 78.9 percent, which would we’d love to see duplicated by a young talent like Valdes-Scantling or St. Brown.

And the rest…

Here’s where the talent pool gets shallow. Brett Swain was a special teams gunner who didn’t catch a single pass as a rookie in 2008.

The 2013 seventh-round duo of Charles Johnson and Kevin Dorsey failed to make the 53-man roster.

The next season, Adams’ star began to rise, but Wisconsin’s own Jared Abbrederis tore his ACL in August and missed his entire rookie season, and Jeff Janis caught a measly 2/16/0. The second-rounder may have made an impact, but the fifth- and seventh-rounders didn’t.

Trevor Davis has shown flashes of ability returning punts, but in his 2016 rookie campaign, he only put up 3/24/1 as a receiver.

His struggles at WR led in part to the team drafting three receivers in April, and the same case could be made for the 2017 duo of DeAngelo Yancey and Malachi Dupre, a fifth- and seventh-round tandem that has combined for zero receptions (Dupree was waived in September 2017).

Overall, Aaron Rodgers has yet to show a strong reliance on rookie wide receivers. Adams’ 2014 debut of 446 yards remains the gold standard. The odds are against Moore, MVS, St. Brown, or Kumerow approaching that total, and if the starters stay healthy, they won’t have to.

But in late August/early September of a pivotal 2018 season, it’s a safe bet that the team will need one of the new guys to step up and post numbers comparable to Cobb’s 375 yards as a rookie.

Who that player will be is a murky picture, but my personal favorite is Valdes-Scantling, who torched the Titans for 101 yards and a touchdown in Week 1 of the preseason.