The Most Important Green Bay Packers: Valdes-Scantling Hits A Career Crossroads

The Green Bay Packers are coming off a year where they went 13-3 in the regular season, won the NFC North and reached the NFC Championship Game. San Francisco routed the Packers, though, 37-20, in the conference title game and Green Bay enters the 2020 season with several questions.

The Packers are hoping to begin training camp in late July.

Between now and the start of camp, I will count down the ‘30 Most Important Packers’ heading into the 2020 campaign.

We’ll begin at No. 30 and work our way towards No. 1.

No. 30

WR, Marquez Valdes-Scantling

Last season: Valdes-Scantling entered the year as a starter and had 21 receptions for 416 yards in the first seven games. Valdes-Scantling had 10 targets and a touchdown against Denver in Week 3 and had 133 receiving yards and a 74-yard touchdown against Oakland in Week 7.

But “MVS” fell out of favor, saw his snap count plummet, and had just five catches for 36 yards in the final nine games.

Career to date: Valdes-Scantling ranked seventh among rookie receivers in yards (581) and ninth in receptions (38) in 2018. The only rookie receivers with more yards than “MVS” that season were Atlanta’s Calvin Ridley (821), Carolina’s DJ Moore (788), Denver’s Courtland Sutton (704), Arizona’s Christian Kirk (590) and Cleveland’s Antonio Callaway (586).

Valdes-Scantling, a fifth-round draft choice, had four of Green Bay’s 16 receptions of 40 yards or more in 2018. He also averaged an impressive 5.32 yards after the catch.

But “MVS” faded in his rookie year and had two catches, or fewer, in five of his last seven games. He followed that up with a disappointing 2019 campaign when he lost his starting job and plummeted down the depth chart in the second half of the season.

Outlook: Valdez-Scantling’s career is clearly at a crossroads.

The lanky, 6-foot-4 wideout ran the 40-yard dash in 4.37 seconds coming out of South Florida. The rest of Green Bay’s wideouts are players with mediocre speed, at best, giving “MVS” a trait no one else in the group has.

Valdez-Scantling hasn’t been able to master the route tree, though, which has kept him off the field. If “MVS” can’t develop more consistency in 2020, it’s likely to be his last season in Green Bay.

Comments

“It’s a new year every year. It’s a new game. And it’s a new week. That’s how you’ve got to approach it. There’s not many guys in the NFL who can say they’re going to consistently get 10 targets a game. It’s tough. It’s the NFL, everybody is good and game plans change week in and week out. Some guys have the hot hand and that’s how it goes, especially playing on our team.” — Valdes-Scantling said earlier this offseason about what went wrong in 2019

“MVS is a guy who I have a ton of confidence in. I really feel like if he can continue to grow that he can really add to our football team and I look for him to make big strides.” — Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers

“I think you look at MVS, the speed he has, he has to take that next step. That’s going to be a challenge for him, and we’re going to be all over him to do that.” — Packers coach Matt LaFleur

“Battling through and ankle and a knee injury is never easy playing the wide receiver position. So that kind of slowed me down a little bit. Then towards the back end of the season, other guys had the hot hand at that point and guys were rolling. So you’re motivated for the guys and you play your part.” — Valdes-Scantling said about the 2019 campaign