Romeo Doubs suspended by Packers in advance of Week 5 matchup with Rams

This week, Green Bay Packers wide receiver Romeo Doubs missed practice due to what head coach Matt LaFleur described as a "personal" matter. On Saturday, the Packers suspended Doubs for one game due to conduct detrimental to the team.

According to a source close to the Packers, Doubs expressed his frustration directly to LaFleur on at least two occasions this week over his role. The receiver also missed practice on Thursday and Friday, part of what the source referred to as "Going M.I.A." There was some hope going into Friday that Doubs would participate after the two sides looked to reconcile, but Doubs missed Friday's practice as well.

"Unfortunately, we had to make the difficult decision to suspend Romeo for this week's game," Packers GM Brian Gutekunst said Saturday in a press release. "His decisions and actions during the week negatively impacted the team and required us to take this action. While we are certainly disappointed, we are confident that we will be able to move forward in a positive manner. Romeo is a valuable member of our team and we look forward to welcoming him back next week."

Doubs' agent declined to comment on the suspension when contacted by The Leap.

Entering Week 5, Doubs has caught 12 of his 20 targets for 169 yards. He has not missed a game since 2022, his rookie season. Doubs currently ranks third on the team in targets and second in yards, thanks mostly to Dontayvion Wicks' monster workload and Christian Watson going out in the first half of last week's game against the Minnesota Vikings. Wicks accounted for 13 targets alone last week after his previous season-high was just four against the Colts.

Doubs, who was set to play in Los Angeles near where he went to high school, worried he wasn't getting any plays run for him in this week's game plan, a source said. The Leap has previously chronicled the increased role in core concepts from Jayden Reed and Wicks.

We noted this offseason, in an excellent piece by Jason Hirschhorn, that Wicks' production on the Yankee concept, a core Shanahan-LaFleur play, paced the Packers last season.

Earlier this week, we wrote about Reed's ascension as the feature receiver in Green Bay's offense. By our charting of the Packers' core passing concepts, Reed already exceeded his total targets on the Packers' Dagger play calls from his entire rookie year. That would be more than double the next-closest player if not for checkdowns.

Doubs’ body language during the Minnesota Vikings game did little to hide his frustration, and for his part, Doubs played one of his worst games of the season. He double-caught a would-be touchdown, the play that coincidentally resulted in LaFleur’s unsportsmanlike for going ballistic when the referees didn’t grant him a timeout to have the play looked at by replay officials. He couldn’t come down with a critical catch in the second half, on a play overturned on replay.

Still, Doubs led the Packers in the 2023 playoffs in yards with 234. The next closest receiver had 35 yards. Green Bay relied on Doubs when the team needed it most. With Watson set to miss the game against the Rams, it followed Doubs would be the beneficiary of some additional targets. His frustration fits, at the very least, with the approach LaFleur has taken with the offense using other players regularly on core concepts. Whether or not that’s a problem that can be solved, or for the Packers a problem at all, remains to be seen.

Doubs will have to wait at least a week if he wants to show why he deserves more targets. Green Bay will have to find a way to beat L.A. without him.