For a second straight year, Jayden Reed has suffered an injury that’s going to keep him out for an extended period of time.
Last year, Reed suffered a broken collarbone two games into the 2025 season and was forced to miss 10 games. And just last week, he suffered a really scary neck injury and had to be carted off the field after laying motionless for what felt like an eternity.
The worst-case scenario popped into everyone’s heads regarding the scary injury and the thought of it being career-ending was rumored.
Fortunately, Packers head coach Matt LaFleur talked a lot of Packer fans off the ledge — kind of — when asked if the neck injury that’s leading to season-ending surgery would be a career-ended for Reed.
"From my understanding no (it’s not career-ending), but he will be out a significant amount of time."Matt LaFleur on Jayden Reed
That answer didn’t sound incredibly confident. LaFleur knows that anything head or neck related can lead to complications and is often what keeps players out for a long time and sometimes even leads to early retirement. At the age of 26, Reed is in danger of falling into that group of players.
Seeing Reed break his collarbone and look like a shell of himself to end the 2025 season was tough and then he was expected to be a top 2-3 option for the Packers this year but a neck injury is going to keep him out until at least 2027. It’s not often that you hear about a season-ending neck injury just two games into the year so this has to be serious. It’s serious enough to have LeFleur giving a vague answer to a question about the injury ending Reed’s NFL career.
Let’s hope Reed comes back healthy and ready to go in 2027, because when he’s healthy, he’s really fun to watch.
Jayden Reed’s career trajectory has hit some spike strips
In his first two seasons after leaving Michigan State, Reed looked like a budding NFL star who was on track to be a perennial 1,000-yard receiver.
Reed had 793 receiving yards as a rookie in 2023 and then improved on that with 857 yards in year two. In those two seasons combined, he had 14 touchdown catches and 119 receptions so he was utilized heavily by the Packers. Unfortunately, that injury in Week 2 of the 2025 season acted like a spike strip for a speeding car.
Reed was ascending so quickly that it took a broken collarbone to knock him down, and that’s where he’s remained thanks to yet another injury.
It’s sad to see a promising career derailed by injuries and hopefully we haven’t seen the last of Reed, but there’s a chance that he’s never quite the same player as he was before.
Fingers crossed that Reed comes back healthy and better than ever in 2027.
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