The Green Bay Packers set wide receiver Sammy Watkins on the injured reserve, the team announced Saturday.
Watkins, who has a hamstring injury, was ruled out of Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay Buccaneers. With IR’s designation, he plays a minimum of four games and could return no earlier than October 23 with Washington.
The only one of the Packers’ top four recipients who was allowed to compete and was excluded from the injury report was Allen Lazard, who has been restricted from training this week because of an ankle injury that kept him out of the season opener. Lazard was back in last week’s match against Chicago Bears and is the only recipient on the list to have achieved the feat this season.
Watkins, 29, had six catches for the 111-foot team in the first two games. He caught three passes in 93 yards against the Bears.
Watkins also addressed hamstring problems last season with Baltimore Raven, when he had 27 catches for 394 yards and one touchdown to set a career low in all three categories. Watkins has suffered from injury for most of his career, which began in 2014 when Buffalo Bills picked him out of Clemson with a 4th overall pick in the draft.
The Packers on Saturday also signed RB Patrick Taylor to the active list and enhanced WR Juwann Winfree to the activity list for game day
Rob Demovsky of ESPN and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
