GREEN BAY — With one move Friday afternoon, Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst added a pair of much-needed draft picks to his roster-building arsenal, created greater opportunities for 2025 first-round draft pick Matthew Golden in the team’s once-overcrowded wide receiver rotation, and even conjured up some additional salary-cap space. 

Of course, to do so, Gutekunst also traded away a young, still improving wideout in Dontayvion Wicks, a player who had made his share of meaningful plays in his three seasons in Green Bay, and sent him to an NFC rival in the Philadelphia Eagles, a team that has represented the conference in two of the last four Super Bowls and ended the Packers’ 2024 season in the first round of the playoffs that year.

A source confirmed that the Packers had traded Wicks to the Eagles in exchange for a fifth-round pick in this year’s draft (No. 153 overall) and a sixth-round pick in the 2027 draft. ESPN and NFL Network were first to report the trade.

The two networks also reported that Wicks’ agent, David Mulgheta, reached an agreement on a one-year, $12.5 million extension with the Eagles that will keep Wicks in Philadelphia through the 2027 season.

Wicks, a fifth-round pick from Virginia in 2023, was headed into the final year of his rookie contract.

De facto No. 1 wide receiver Christian Watson, who signed a one-year extension while still coming back from a torn ACL in his right knee, and Jayden Reed, a 2023 second-round pick and Wicks’ closest friend on the team, are in the final year of their contracts, too.

The trade creates roughly $2.6 million in salary-cap space, which gives the Packers about $25 million in cap room00 an amount they could put toward extension for Watson, Reed and/or tight end Tucker Kraft.

Wicks, who was bothered by a calf injury throughout training camp, missed two games at midseason because of the calf and two more at the end of the year, including the team’s season-ending playoff loss to the Chicago Bears, with a concussion sustained in a Dec. 27 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

He finished 2025 having caught 30 passes for 332 yards and two touchdowns on 46 targets while playing 408 offensive snaps in 14 games. Every single one of those numbers was a career low.

But, he delivered in a big way in the team’s 31-24 Thanksgiving Day victory in Detroit, catching six passes for 94 yards and two touchdowns against the Lions, including a 16-yard catch on fourth-and-3 late in the fourth quarter that sealed the Packers’ victory.

“We don’t win the game without him,” Watson said of Wicks afterward. 

Asked what the performance and the final catch meant to him, Wicks replied at the time, “That just takes that confidence knowing who you [are], what you can do. That’s all it was. I came out, and I’d been having a good game and I just wanted to end it.”

The trade means the Packers will be without two of their top receivers this season from a group that was touted as having no No. 1 receiver and a Kumbaya meeting-room vibe where the wideouts supported each other and never let jealousy creep in.

But it’s not hard to imagine Wicks wanting to have a greater role than he had last year, especially after head coach Matt LaFleur revealed at the annual NFL Meetings that some players were unhappy with their roles and that those disgruntled feelings “took a toll on our football team” last season.

Golden also might not have been thrilled with his opportunities last year as a rookie first-round pick, and he confessed that he was struggling with his inconsistent opportunities and injury setbacks toward the end of the season.

“Obviously, there’s frustration,” Golden admitted. “I know what I can do. I’ve always had confidence in myself. I’m just trying to, obviously, just push through, trying my best to get back on the field, just trying to physically get my body right so I can try to help the team as much as I can.” 

With both Doubs and Wicks out of the picture, Golden’s opportunities figure to skyrocket in Year 2. He finished his rookie year with 29 receptions for 361 yards and had his best game of the year in the playoff loss to the Bears, when he caught four passes for 84 yards and his first career NFL touchdown.

“I thought Matthew did a great job,” Gutekunst said of Golden at the annual NFL scouting combine in February. “With all the opportunities we gave him, I thought he did an excellent job. I would have loved to have seen him get more opportunities through the year.

“It didn’t work out that way but, when he did, he performed, and he performed at a high level. I’m really excited to see where he goes in Year 2. Obviously, he was a third-year player coming out of college — one year at Texas, two years at Houston — so I think his ceiling is very, very high.

“We’re very, very excited about what he’s going to do for our football team moving forward.”

The trade also gives Gutekunst, who does not possess a first-round pick in this year’s or next year’s drafts after including those picks in the trade that brought star edge rusher Micah Parsons to Green Bay, more picks.

The Packers now have eight picks in the April 23-25 draft, with single picks in the second, third, fourth and sixth rounds and two picks each in the fifth and seventh rounds. In his first eight drafts as GM, Gutekunst has never come out of a draft having made fewer than eight picks.

The additional 2027 sixth-rounder means the Packers could have a dozen or more picks next year, even without a first-round choice.

The Packers are projected to get four compensatory picks next year, and Gutekunst added a fourth-round pick in the trade that sent defensive end Rashan Gary to the Dallas Cowboys.

“I think we have really good core players coming back. I feel really good about our core,” Gutekunst said earlier this offseason. “The guys we’re going to bring in, whether it’s the draft or free agency, we’re going to expect them to play and contribute.

“But I don’t think it’s one of those overhaul-type situations where we feel we’ve got to overhaul the roster. But there’s some significant issues that we’ve got to make sure that we fix before we get into next season.”

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