GREEN BAY – The season isn't quite half over, but Tucker Kraft is on pace to turn in the best year ever by a Packers tight end.
That's right, ever.
Consider these single-season records for Green Bay tight ends:
- The most receptions is 61 by Jermichael Finley in 2012. With 30 catches through seven games, Kraft is on pace for 73.
- The most receiving yards is 814 by Paul Coffman in 1983. With 469 yards thus far, Kraft is on pace for 1,139.
- The most receiving TDs is 11, set by Coffman in '83 and tied by Robert Tonyan in 2020. With six TDs in 2025 to date, Kraft is on pace for 14 or 15.
The recent addition of a 17th regular-season game has, comparatively speaking, boosted those projections a bit, and there's admittedly a long way to go beginning with Sunday's home matchup against Carolina. So this is not meant to set unrealistic expectations for Kraft, only to point out he could be in the midst of a historic season in the long and storied history of this franchise.
Also, defenses certainly will adjust, especially now that Kraft has set his own career high for receiving yards in a game twice, with 124 in Week 2 vs. Washington and then 143 last week at Pittsburgh. So as they say about the stock market, past performance does not guarantee future results.
As a side note, there are a grand total of three 120-plus yard performances by tight ends in the NFL this season, and Kraft has two of them (the Chargers' Oronde Gadsden has the other). So Kraft is only going to attract more and more attention from opposing defenses from here on out.
How he and the Packers respond to that remains to be seen. But here's the other side of the coin: Kraft is about to turn just 25 on Monday, and he's not a finished product. He'll likely keep getting better.
"His growth," receiver Romeo Doubs answered when asked what's impressed him the most about Kraft. "I remember when he first got here as a rookie, and from that time on he's been doing nothing but just grinding and being the best he can be."
Speaking of rookies, safety Evan Williams remembers last year as a newly arrived fourth-round pick trying to cover Kraft in practice and, well, struggling to do so.
"It's funny, going against him a couple times, he's one of the only tight ends who's pretty consistently beating me," Williams recalled. "I'm like, damn, there's no way I can't guard a tight end. I pride myself … that's my job description. I've got to be able to guard all these tight ends.
"But after seeing what he's done these past couple years, it's no surprise. Just his work ethic, how he approaches every day. Yeah, he's a beast, man."
League-wide, he leads all tight ends in receiving yards per game at 67.0, and his six TDs are tied for second behind Philly's Dallas Goedert, who has seven and has played one more game. On Sunday against the Panthers, Kraft is looking to score a receiving TD in his fourth straight home game.
And here's one more statistical nugget from NFL Research/Next Gen Stats to put proper context around just what Kraft is doing so far this season:
QB Jordan Love's passer rating while targeting Kraft this season is 150.3, as his 30 catches for 469 yards and six TDs have come on just 41 targets with no interceptions. That's the highest for any QB-pass catcher duo in the league this year (min. 40 targets) by 19 rating points.
Next best is Seattle QB Sam Darnold and WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba at 131.3, and the duos of Dak Prescott-George Pickens in Dallas (128.5) and Jared Goff-Amon-Ra St. Brown in Detroit (128.2) are more than 20 rating points behind.
Again, the current season isn't quite half over, but that 150.3 rating when targeted is the second-highest in the decade-long Next Gen Stats era (since 2016, min. 40 targets). Back in 2018, Seattle QB Russell Wilson and WR Tyler Lockett fashioned a maximum 158.3 rating when Lockett caught 57 passes on 70 targets for 965 yards and 10 TDs with no interceptions when the ball was thrown his way.
That'll be a fun stat to track as the season continues, particularly with Kraft's penchant for taking short passes and turning them into big plays with substantial yards after the catch.
Oh, and he's also one of the offense's best blockers, not just among tight ends, but among all players on the team.
"There's no weak point in his game," Williams said. "There's nothing that a defense can attack.
"I'm glad that guy's on my team, I'll say that much."
