Golden isn't fighting for snaps anymore. Green Bay shipped Dontayvion Wicks to Philadelphia and let Romeo Doubs leave for New England in free agency, and what's left is about as clean a runway as a Year 2 receiver gets: Christian Watson holds the Z, Jayden Reed works the slot, and the boundary route tree that used to be split three ways now runs through Golden. Jordan Love has treated him accordingly through camp, testing him on the deep stuff early instead of easing him in.
What made Green Bay comfortable clearing that path is what Golden actually does when the ball's in the air. He's a vertical route-runner first, built to win the boundary on go balls and comebacks rather than beat you underneath, and even in a rookie season that mostly kept him on the sideline, he still averaged well over 12 yards a catch. The tape that got the Packers excited wasn't a garbage-time stat line, it was the wild-card loss to Chicago, where he turned into exactly the player they drafted him to be: four catches, 84 yards, and his first NFL touchdown on contested, downfield work. Camp reporters have described the same shape of play this summer, including an over-the-shoulder grab on a deep ball up the sideline that had the building buzzing.
The honest hole in the résumé is that none of that showed up consistently as a rookie. A shoulder injury cost him time, he never topped half the offensive snaps in a game, and he went the entire regular season without finding the end zone. A vertical receiver who can't get consistent volume doesn't just underperform, he disappears for stretches, and Golden hasn't yet proven he can hold the target share now that the room is actually his to hold.
The comparison that matters is the guy whose old job he took. Doubs was never a vertical weapon in Green Bay, he was a possession target who worked the middle of the field and topped out as a solid complementary piece before the Packers decided he wasn't worth the money and let him walk to New England. Golden offers something Doubs never did, a receiver who can take the top off a defense on any given snap, and that's a real edge if Love keeps testing him deep the way camp suggests he will. The risk is that Doubs earned his role with steady, boring reliability, and Golden still has to show he can be trusted on early downs the way Doubs was before anyone hands him the job for good.
