The Chatter Around Matthew Golden Feels Different

Hyping up an NFL rookie to give him a shot of confidence is par for the course early on in the process. Sure, there's some tough love and lessons learned the hard way. Still, the last thing any organization wants to do is ruin the confidence of its potential budding stars.

Matthew Golden has received plenty of votes of confidence from teammates and coaches. It feels like more than just your typical rookie pat on the back, though.

Golden has displayed the quickness and soft hands that made him an absolute problem for defenses in college. His coaches have also lauded his determination to be great.

Teammates haven't held back what they're seeing throughout camp. Here's Jordan Love:

Some of that is boilerplate quarterback talk about his young wide receiver. Still, Love took it a step further with his praise of Golden. "But you can see, when he knows what he’s doing, and he’s feeling confident," Love said. "He’s been playing lights out. He’s gonna be a stud."

Matt LaFleur and Co. are enamored with what they've seen. It's often been Golden going up against Green Bay's top cornerback, Keisean Nixon, in one-on-one drills.

Some of that might be to test the waters early and see Golden's makeup. But in a wide receiver room heavier on quantity than quality, it's not impossible to think that by the end of 2025, Golden could be at the top of the food chain.

In ESPN's training camp news write-up, the first bullet point from Jeremy Fowler was all about the rookie from Texas.

The Packers have been vocal about the strong first impression Golden is making at training camp. It differs from the typical ego-stoking a team will do for a young player entering a new situation.

It's fair to want to pump the brakes and remind the masses that this is just training camp. Even with pads on and some tackling taking place, it's not the same as the regular season. There have been training camp stars who fizzled out. It's reasonable to take the excitable Golden talk with a grain of salt.

It's also fair to admit that it hits differently with him.

One helpful factor, as noted by LaFleur earlier in camp, is that Golden won't be burdened with needing to be the go-to guy every week, certainly not immediately. If everything comes together and Golden looks the part of a No. 1 wide receiver, great. If he takes more time to settle in, that's also fine.

Green Bay has the luxury (we can call it that for now) of having a ton of good options on offense, all of whom are eager to get the ball in their hands. That might just be the perfect set of circumstances for Golden. If need be, Green Bay can exercise some patience with Golden, despite him being a first-round pick.

The expectations are high, but they aren't Please save us, we have nobody else high. There's room to breathe and figure things out along the way.

Still, all indications are that Golden is showing tremendous progress early. He feels like a different breed of cat, perhaps a star in the making.