The Green Bay Packers have one of the deepest wide receiver rooms in the league, and Christian Watson will only add to the real-life and fantasy football confusion on this depth chart. At his best, the former second-round pick is a dangerous but inconsistent weapon who can give you a starting-caliber performance with just two or three receptions. However, given the talent on the depth chart and Watson’s injury history, is he worth a roster spot?
Fantasy Football: Christian Watson Outlook Following Return to Practice
Let’s start with the obvious: Christian Watson has returned to practice, but that doesn’t mean he’ll play NFL snaps anytime soon. The wide receiver tore his ACL in the 2024 regular season finale and made a speedy recovery. While he says he wants to play as soon as possible, that may not be realistic.
Now that he’s practicing, the Packers have 21 days to activate him or he’ll revert to the injured reserve. Given Green Bay’s depth at the wide receiver position, they’ll probably wait for Watson to reach full strength before activating him. After all, Watson is more of a luxury than a need, so why would they risk re-injuring him with a rushed timeline?
Whether it’s next week or three weeks from now, Christian Watson will eventually return to the field and carry some fantasy football relevance. The only question is, can you trust him, and should you roster him?
On-Field Projections
The Green Bay Packers do not have a traditional target hog in their offense, but they have four or five players who all justify a decent target share. The Packers have played four games as of this posting, and tight end Tucker Kraft leads the team with 20 targets and an 18.1% target share. This doesn’t sound like much, but four other players currently land between 14 and 19 targets.
Quite frankly, this heavily distributed volume leaves little for Christian Watson, which is bad news for fantasy football. The silver lining is that Watson is a deep threat, which means he should be decently efficient with his limited targets. However, he probably won’t be anything more than a situational player, as veteran Romeo Doubs, first-round pick Matthew Golden, and even Dontayvion Wicks are likely entrenched ahead of him on the depth chart.
If you play in a deep fantasy football league with a plethora of bench spots, then you should grab Christian Watson now and hope he hits his best-case scenario. However, in any format, he’ll probably just be a waste of a roster spot. Perhaps he’ll have a big game or two in 2025, but his low projected volume means you’ll never be able to predict when that big game arrives.
Main Photo: Dan Powers – Imagn Images
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