Jayden Reed was carried off a field on a backboard. The good news, and it is real news, is that he is expected to play football again.
The Green Bay Packers receiver is out for the season after neck surgery. He was injured on the second play of the Sept. 20 game at MetLife Stadium against the Jets, taken off on a backboard and held overnight in a New Jersey hospital.
LaFleur Delivered Both Halves of It
Head coach Matt LaFleur confirmed the obvious part first. “It will be a season-ending [injury]. He’ll be out, unfortunately.”
He also said he does not believe the injury threatens Reed’s career, which is the sentence that matters. Neck injuries in football come with a specific kind of dread, and a coach saying the career is intact is not a thing coaches say casually.
Reed’s own message, posted to Instagram, was characteristically him: “God will use the unusual to do the unexpected. 11 out.”
Green Bay Just Paid Him
Reed signed a three-year, $50.25 million extension in April 2026. He was a 2023 second-round pick, taken 50th overall out of Michigan State.
That extension now covers a season he will not play. Green Bay will not complain about it, and nobody should. You pay a young receiver for the next three years, not the next three games.
The Timing Could Not Be Worse
LaFleur has called Reed an energy guy in the locker room, which is the kind of compliment that sounds soft until the player is gone.
Green Bay then got beaten 35-14 at home by Atlanta. The Packers signed guard Kevin Zeitler, 36, on Sept. 30 to a one-year deal worth $4.05 million with up to $5 million available. It is his seventh NFL team.
A 36-year-old guard is a useful signing and not an answer to losing your slot receiver for the year.
What Green Bay Has to Figure Out
The Packers travel to Tampa Bay on Sunday. Reed’s role was specific: he worked the middle of the field, moved the chains on third down, and gave the offense a target who could win from the slot without needing a clean release off the line.
Receivers who do that are not interchangeable. Green Bay has depth at the position and no obvious replacement for that function.
Keep the Perspective
Here is the thing worth holding onto. A player left a stadium in an ambulance, had neck surgery, and his coach says he expects him back. Measured against what everyone feared watching that play live, a lost season is an acceptable outcome.
No return timeline has been announced, and the exact date of his IR designation has not been confirmed.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
