<p>The evolution of wind waves is often accompanied by the presence of a wind drift layer, a shear flow just beneath the water surface, of small depth and weak surface current, but with strong shear. The forced nonlinear Schrödinger equation is a canonical model for the evolution of wave packets, where the forcing is through a critical level instability in the air flow, and the water wave envelope is described by the soliton and breather solutions as models of a wave packet. We determine how a wind drift layer affects the forced nonlinear Schrödinger equation, and hence how the wind drift layer affects the evolution of water wave packets. Although the effect is quite small, in the absence of surface tension and in the deep water limit, we find through analytical and numerical analysis, that a wind drift layer tends to slightly increase the growth rate, enhance wave packet amplitudes and decrease the wave packet width.</p>