Green Bay Packers rookie wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks is consistently finding success but picking up yards after the catch (YAC) is one area, in particular, where he has excelled.
“It’s just tough on tough,” said Wicks about his YAC abilities. “Whoever is the most physical and want it more that’s who is going to get it. That’s something I go by. You’ve got to show me you’re tougher than me while we out there. Talking ain’t going to get it. It’s all in action.”
For the season, Wicks is averaging 6.1 YAC per reception. Among all receivers, this ranks 11th. Since Week 9, when Wicks’ opportunities and production began to take off, he is averaging 7.8 yards after the catch which ranks seventh. Despite having the 42nd most receptions during that span at his position group, Wicks has the 15th most total yards after the catch.
When it comes to the Packers, Wicks is first by a wide margin. Second on the team this season in this category is Jayden Reed at 4.6 yards, followed by Christian Watson at 3.8 yards.
“He has a great mindset,” said wide receivers coach Jason Vrable. “He has a great mindset, but if you really watched him on contact, he has a running back lower half where his whole foot gets in the ground off contact, and it’s really strong in his lower half. He does a good job when the first guy touches him that his pad level is low and he just runs through it.
“He’s done a tremendous job from the Atlanta game where he scored his first touchdown and broke a tackle there to last week where he had four catches that turned into about an extra 30 yards because of his YAC mindset. He did a really good job.”
Wicks’ YAC numbers from his time in college don’t leap off the page, but as we’ve seen before with other young players, sometimes a lack of production in a certain area is a product of the opportunities you had and the positions you were put in.
Along with having a YAC mindset, as Vrable put it, and sometimes just running through and dragging defenders, there are key fundamentals when it comes to successfully picking up yards after the catch that Wicks regularly executes on.
He also puts himself in an advantageous situation before the catch, with his ability at the line of scrimmage to create separation from the defender, along with the sixth sense he possesses when it comes to finding the soft spot in a defense’s coverage.
“First and foremost, we talk a lot about body, ball, boundary,” added Vrable. “When you’re running the sideline, if you get it in the outside arm and the DB is inside, you can use a stiff arm, you can be violent, you can bounce off of stuff. If I know what hand to put the ball, if you’re going into the middle and the DB is on your outside, then the ball should be inside.
“So there’s a lot of fundamental things we stress. The beginning of practice, throughout practice, and when you’re watching the clicker, hey that’s a great play, but if you get the ball here right away on the catch-touch transition, away from the defender in the middle you’ve got a chance to get more yards. So there’s a lot of things out there you can continue to grow on.”
A big part of the Packers’ turnaround on offense at about the halfway mark in the season was their ability to generate chunk plays. It’s a tough way for an offense to live in the NFL when their primary means of scoring includes consistently stringing together 10-plus play drives. As LaFleur says, explosive plays lead to points.
In part, this came through improved deep ball accuracy from Jordan Love, but also a part of that equation is Wicks’ YAC abilities, which have turned a number of short to intermediate throws into chunk gains for the offense.
In addition to Wicks picking up YAC, he’s become a reliable target for Love in key situations, such as on third down. Over the last seven games, Wicks has been one of the most efficient pass catchers in football, averaging 17.9 yards per catch and ranking second in yards per route run–illustrating his ability to create opportunities for himself and then take advantage when the ball comes his way.
“We like to finish with violent intentions,” said Vrable, “which means your pad level down, underneath the defense, and get what you can get, but we want to have great ball security.”
