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While the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers thinks about how Aaron Rodgers helped him, the team has dealt with an injury situation for one of his weapons. However, here is the Packers’ biggest reason to panic after the start of the 2025 NFL training camp.
One of the toughest positions to get things right in the NFL is edge rusher. There simply aren’t enough players who are good enough to go around the league. And that’s the area where the Packers will enter this season with the finger on the panic button.
The Packers have one player who ranks in the top 32 among edge rushers. However, his performances have been on the decline.
Packers head coach Matt LaFleur has concerns
Rashan Gary is the Packers’ best guy on the edge for head coach Matt LaFleur. And he ranked No. 19 in the league, according to Pro Football Focus. However, he may be headed in the wrong direction.
“Gary’s PFF overall grade has declined in each of the past three seasons after peaking at 89.8 in 2021,” Ryan Smith wrote. “But he remains one of the NFL’s most complete edge defenders, and he’s still just 27 years old. The former Michigan Wolverine has also proven durable, not missing a game over the past two seasons.”
It’s good that Gary is durable. And it’s good he has been available. He has 39 career sacks, including 7.5 last season.
Here’s the rip from Bill Huber of Sports Illustrated.
“The Packers drafted him with the 12th pick of the first round in 2019,” Huber wrote. “In 2023, he received a four-year, $96 million contract extension. There are great expectations associated with those things. So far, Gary has failed to live up to those expectations.
“He’s been good. He just hasn’t been great. As he enters Year 7, it’s possible Gary will never be anything more than a good player who will deliver solid production as a pass rusher and set the edge as a run defender but never will be capable of taking over a game against top competition.”
What do Packers have besides Gary?
Along with Gary, the Packers have Lukas Van Ness, who starts on the other side. Kingsley Enagbare backs up Gary. And the Packers have an interesting player on second team in Barryn Sorrell. The rookie has shown promise.
LaFleur said Sorrell looks the part, according to packers.com.
“He’s done a great job,” LaFleur said. “You can kind of get a good feel for the character of the guy. And he is just A-plus in terms of just how he is going to approach everything. He will absolutely, I think, reach his ceiling … because of how he approaches the game. And the time he puts in. And how detailed he is.
“You can coach him hard. He takes everything to heart. I think he’s getting better every day. I think he’s still got a lot to learn. So, it’s going to be fun to see just that evolution take place throughout the course of camp and into the regular season.”
Overall, the Packers plan on being aggressive on defense in terms of forcing turnovers, according to packers.com via packerswire.com.
“You see guys come out in practice, anytime they're close to the ball, anytime anyone's close to the ball, punching at it violently,” second-year safety Evan Williams told Hodkiewicz. “We're talking about angry, violent intentions. The picks are great, obviously, but I feel like it's another thing to go get a forced fumble because no ball carrier is going to give you the ball.”
Under defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, the Packers ranked in the top five for takeaways last year in his first season. They totaled 17 interceptions and recovered 14 fumbles.
But it still takes a pass rush to incorporate with the aggressiveness. Otherwise, the team is just taking chances and risking the likelihood of getting burned for game-changing plays. Of course, unless those turnovers are consistent strip sacks.
One thing that can help is the attacking from the beyond the edge rushers. And solid play from the secondary. All-Pro safety Xavier McKinney said the Packers’ defense is ready to rock for 2025, according to packers.com.
“That next step I think is to have one of the best defenses in the league,” McKinney said. “That's what we're aiming for. We're trying to be a defense that always creates turnovers, that plays with a level of intensity where the offense can't match us, and I think we got the guys to do that. It’s going to be fun. I'm not going to let off the gas for nothing or nobody. That same intensity, that same energy, it's going to stay the same.”
