Like most football fans, I was getting ready to settle in and watch the NFC Divisional Round matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers. Before I could even get comfy, Seahawks returner Rashid Shaheed took the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, giving Seattle a quick 7-0 lead, from which the 49ers would never recover.
As Shaheed returned the kick, I found myself thinking, “When was the last time a Packers game started like that?” Honestly, I couldn’t remember.
Then I asked myself another question: “When was the last time the Packers had a return like that at all?”
The answer, unfortunately, is far too long ago.
Green Bay’s special teams have long been a thorn in the side of the organization. They’ve cost the team crucial football games. Look back at the 2014 NFC Championship game or the final two Chicago Bears games this season. If just a few special teams plays go a different way, the Packers likely win all of those contests.
Perhaps the most frustrating part about Green Bay’s incompetence on the third phase isn’t just that they’re bad — all teams have shortcomings — it’s that they don’t seem capable of finding the answer.
Look at what the Seahawks did, for example. As the trade deadline approached, they identified a roster need to help them take the next step.
They believed rookie Tory Horton was a dynamic option to return kicks. However, halfway through the year, he was underwhelming, averaging just 12.4 yards per return. So they swung a trade for former Pro Bowl returner Shaheed to improve their return units.
Shaheed rewarded them with his second career Pro Bowl nod, as well as a momentum-swinging 95-yard kick return in the Divisional Round. A threat to take it the distance every time he touches the ball, Shaheed is a true field-tilter for Mike Macdonald’s Seahawks. They saw a weakness and addressed it, even though it was on the oft-forgotten special teams unit.
Compare that to the Packers. Green Bay’s approach seems to be to hope special teams don’t make mistakes and cost them the game, rather than trying to use that unit to change the game. For example, the Packers have a former All-Pro kick returner on their roster but chose not to use him until the playoffs.
Keisean Nixon is a two-time All-Pro kick returner, both with Green Bay. Still, the Packers decided to let him focus strictly on cornerback. Was that because the Packers didn’t want to expose their de facto CB1 to additional hits? Or because Nixon was vocal about not wanting to return kicks anymore?
“I’m kind of over it. I don’t really want to do it no more,” Nixon said after last year’s Wild Card loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. “There are going to be talks with the coaching staff and stuff like that, but I think it’s over for me.”
It appears he won those talks, as he didn’t record a single kick return all season. We can also revisit the fact that the Packers didn’t realize Nixon could return kicks until well after signing him early in 2022.
“We should have had him in there earlier, and we didn’t,” LaFleur admitted in 2022. “I don’t think we knew what we had.”
If the Packers can’t evaluate their own talent in terms of return ability, can they really be trusted to put the right person back there?
The facts speak for themselves. The Packers didn’t have a viable kick-return solution all season. Instead, they paraded a group of backups through a role that has become important in today’s game after the NFL implemented new kickoff rules.
Savion Williams, Bo Melton, Emanuel Wilson, and Chris Brooks handled kickoff returns for the Packers during the regular season. Williams led the team with a 25.6-yard average, which still fell below the league average.
When the playoffs arrived, who was back there? If you guessed starting running back Josh Jacobs, you would be correct. Jacobs was returning kicks for the first time in his career, in a playoff game. He promptly fumbled, and the Packers were fortunate that Kitan Oladapo was in position to recover.
Josh Jacobs fumbles the kick return but the Packers land on it
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Also streaming on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/HDVMTr7cCr— NFL (@NFL) January 11, 2026
When a team lacks a legitimate return threat, opponents can consistently exploit that weakness with short kicks that force a return.
The Packers haven’t only neglected kickoff returns. Punt returns have also been a black hole in recent years. In 2025, they began the season with rookie Matthew Golden back there. While Golden had punt-return experience in college, they didn’t draft him for that role. The Packers clearly realized they didn’t have a real solution and used Golden as a temporary option.
When Golden struggled with poor judgment, limited production, and a paltry 4.7 yards per return, they shifted to Romeo Doubs. The idea wasn’t that Doubs would break big returns, but that he had reliable hands and wouldn’t put the ball on the ground.
According to Daire Carragher, in November, the Packers ranked dead last in the NFL in average punt-return yardage at five yards. The last team to do that? The 2020 Packers. The team before that? The 2019 Packers.
One of the biggest checkmarks on Brian Gutekunst’s to-do list this offseason is to find a legit return man for this team. The Seahawks showed how that can change a game, especially in the playoffs. They rode the talents of their returner right into the NFC Championship game.
The Packers need to start caring about their return game again, on both kicks and punts. The question is whether we can trust them to do so. The days of Desmond Howard and Allen Rossum are long gone and have been for quite some time.
Meanwhile, competition around the league, especially in the NFC, continues to improve and make external upgrades when necessary. By contrast, Green Bay is putting band-aids on a hatchet wound. There’s no evidence the 2026 Packers will be any different. Alas, we can hope.