Green Bay’s latest offensive fix came with a familiar name and a bigger question.
On Wednesday, the Packers signed veteran guard Kevin Zeitler, a move that arrived the same day coach Matt LaFleur confirmed wide receiver Jayden Reed will miss the rest of the season after neck surgery. The timing underscored how many different problems are now sitting on the same side of the ball for Green Bay: a receiver room without Reed, a passing game dealing with drops, and an offensive line that has already been overhauled with veteran additions.
Zeitler gives the Packers a 15th-year lineman who has been around long enough to make a new playbook feel routine. He has played in 214 regular-season games with 213 starts, was selected to the Pro Bowl in 2023, and has the most games played and starts by any offensive lineman in the league since entering the NFL in 2012. He will wear No. 70 for Green Bay.
The move is part of a broader response to an offense that has been out of sync from the start. The Packers have signed three veteran offensive linemen, and the urgency is easy to see in the numbers around them. Green Bay’s 2026 team became just the second since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger to rank last in both completion percentage and rushing yards per game through three weeks. The Packers also rank 32nd in PFF’s “supporting cast” rating.
The run game has been especially hard to ignore. In Week 3, Green Bay was outrushed 242 yards to 17, the third-worst such margin for the franchise since 1980. Through the first three weeks, the Packers had just 146 total rushing yards, the fewest in the NFL. They also entered the week converting only 27.8 percent of their third downs, the league’s lowest rate.
That backdrop helps explain why the Packers are treating the problem as more than a single-position issue. Jordan Love has still been one of the league’s more efficient passers since becoming the starter in 2023, but the offense around him has not held up. Love has also been dealing with a drops problem, with the NFL’s nine dropped passes tied to his name in the reporting around Green Bay’s struggles.
Reed’s injury only sharpens that pressure. LaFleur said the injury is not believed to be career-threatening, but Reed is set to undergo surgery and is out for the season after getting hurt on the second play of Green Bay’s offense in Week 2. Reed had signed a three-year, $50.25 million extension in April, and his absence removes one of the team’s most established playmakers from an offense already searching for answers.
That leaves more on Tucker Kraft, whose production has not yet matched the role Green Bay needs from him. Through the first three games, Kraft has nine receptions for 106 yards and has not scored. He is also returning from a midseason ACL injury, even though before that setback he was on pace for 68 catches, 1,039 yards and 13 touchdowns.
The Packers’ next two games are among the biggest of their season, and the timing is not ideal. Green Bay has trailed by double-digit points in each of its first three games for the first time since 2014, and the team has had almost a full week between its Week 3 loss and its next game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That has only intensified the conversation around an offense that now has to be rebuilt while the season is already moving.
Zeitler is the latest piece in that effort. Whether the line changes are enough to steady an offense dealing with drops, injuries and a shrinking margin for error is the question Green Bay now has to answer on the field.