Which Packers Defensive Linemen Will Step Up This Season?
By GilMartin
The Green Bay Packers did not address the defensive line position until the fourth round of the 2025 NFL Draft. That means that the team is counting primarily on improvement from within to improve the pass rush from the front four in Jeff Hafley’s defense. The Packers are hoping that several of their defensive linemen will step up and improve their play in 2025 as they enter year two of the new 4-3 base defense Hafley installed last year.
One player who saw his play fall off dramatically in 2024 was defensive tackle Kenny Clark. The former first round pick out of UCLA went to the Pro Bowl in 2023 after a career-high 7.5 sacks. In 2024, he went down to just one sack. His tackles for loss also fell from nine to four and his quarterback hits were reduced from 16 to five.
Clark played through injuries, but the Packers need him to return closer to his previous play where he did a better job of holding up at the point of attack and penetrating the line of scrimmage to make plays.
Rashan Gary also failed to live up to expectations as a pass rusher in 2024 although his run defense improved significantly. Gary led the Packers with 7.5 sacks but still fell short of his career-best 9.5 which he set back in 2021.
The knee injury that cost him the second half of the 2022 season should be far behind him, and he now should be more comfortable in Hafley’s defense. That should give Gary a chance to have a better year in 2025.
The Packers are hoping for a breakout season from former first-round pick Lukas Van Ness. The Iowa alum enters his third season in the NFL but has yet to start a game or develop into an elite pass rusher.
Van Ness has the physical tools to get to the quarterback but still needs to refine his technique and develop alternative moves. He compiled just three sacks last season after recording four in his rookie campaign. If Van Ness can take a big step forward, he can give the Pack another dangerous pass rushing weapon off the edge.
Brenton Cox, Jr. finally got time in the pass rush rotation in the final seven games of the 2024 season after the Packers traded Preston Smith. Cox recorded four sacks and seven quarterback hits in limited action, playing just 35 percent of the team’s defensive snaps in those seven games.
Cox had early round talent but ended up not being drafted because of some off the field issues he had in college. If given the chance, he could live up to his original promise or at least be a solid rotational player who can get pressure on the quarterback when called upon.
The Packers picked up the fifth-year option on defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt. The former Georgia star may get more playing time this season depending on where they have him line up. He has only started five games in his first three NFL seasons but has demonstrated the ability to rush the passer.
Wyatt has 10.5 sacks total over the last two seasons and could help give the Packers some juice from the interior of the line, especially in obvious passing situations. He needs to improve his play against the run to take on an every down role.
Kinglsey Enagbare will be entering the final year of his contract this season. The former South Carolina star had 4.5 sacks last season and will be one more year removed from the injury he suffered in the Packers playoff win over Dallas in January of 2024. Enagbare stepped in as the starter opposite Gary for the final seven games of the season when Smith was traded.
The Packers may also get some help from rookies Barryn Sorrell and Collin Oliver who were drafted in the fourth and fifth rounds this year. They are expected to be rotational pass rushers and anything they add in 2025 would be considered a bonus.
The Packers are hoping for improved pressure from their front four in 2025. If even some of these players step up and play better this season, they may very well get it.
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Comments (24)
PackEyedOptimist
May 24, 2025 at 10:44 am
I think a major reason the Packers’ sacks and pressures fell off last year has nothing to do with our players.
Last year, we faced a lot of running QBs and top offensive lines.
Unfortunately, Detroit and Minnesota have great OLs and now Chicago has invested a lot into theirs as well.
We also faced Philadelphia again.
We can’t expect “more” when we’re facing “more difficult.”
TarynsEyes
May 24, 2025 at 11:19 am
We can’t expect “more” when we’re facing “more difficult.”
By this sentiment, the Packers should demand a schedule filled with lesser to appear competitive.
What this article speaks to is the undeniable truth of the question I posed a few times now. What players do not, legitimately, need to worry about their position on the team. The more the number of players on the list, the more the season leans to failure. Which players need to step up, or back to where they were for this team to be truly competitive against the known better, less the ones that will have improved more than them already.
The article is already making excuses for their falling play, which isn't all injury based, but the simple fact that they're the lesser player against the opponents played. Will a couple, or a few, play better, likely, but will it actually be enough to do so against the better teams, which to date, screams a loud no.
To those who will offer rankings as an argument, stop, as great stats against bad erases the poor stats against the good, which gives an untrue ranking as to what they really are.
I don't know how many steps up these mentioned players need to take, but it better be more than an 1/2 step or one, as that isn't enough to regain what you lost and move forward, but only get back to where you have been which wasn't enough either over the last couple/few seasons.
TKWorldWide
May 25, 2025 at 08:09 am
Yeah, yeah, but just you wait until LVN busts out the gate with his new and improved “swim” and “rip” moves, baby! Whoo! (Celebrity voice of Ric Flair, the Boy of Nature, impersonated.)
😉
Coldworld
May 24, 2025 at 11:18 am
I want to see more of Cox and whether he can sustain what he did for a month last year. If he does get even close over this season that alone will be a big uplift.
I want to see Wyatt stay healthy. When he’s not dinged up he’s looked to have rare ability, but that’s been frustratingly brief periods. If he can do what he has flashed for a. Extended period, that will catapult him and us.
As to the rest, the biggest thing to me is variety. Oliver is a completely different animal and having him changes how defenses have to approach any given snap. Sorrell is not so different, but he wins in different ways, notably hand play, and is somewhat more bendy than most on last year’s roster.
We have a tactician as a DC. We are starting to give him pieces to change things up from the same straight line power rush just different faces we saw for most of last year. I think that will help Gary produce more and other hold overs.
As Mark Wahle has frequently said, with the Packers, opponents knew what they would get in terms of rush before the game and from snap-to-snap and that makes an OL’s job much easier: he knows what’s coming and can focus on that as can his coordinator. Watching teams, that certainly seemed to be evident in their approach. Hopefully this year we reeducate them painfully if they assume that continues.
LLCHESTY
May 24, 2025 at 11:54 am
Wyatt made nfl.com's most underrated NFC players:
."A first-round pick in 2022, Wyatt took a big step forward in 2023, posting 5.5 sacks and 48 QB pressures (per PFF). With Jeff Hafley taking over the defense in 2024 -- switching the scheme from Joe Barry’s 3-4 front to a base 4-3 approach -- Wyatt appeared poised for a full-fledged breakout as a gap-shooting 3-tech. And he was indeed a monster in the first three games of the season, racking up three sacks, five QB hits and nine pressures. But then he sprained his ankle in Week 4, sidelining him for three games. He appeared to get his mojo back late in the season, logging a sack in back-to-back December games, but I want to see a fully healthy season from Wyatt in Hafley’s system."
GregC
May 24, 2025 at 12:15 pm
Yeah, Wyatt is a good candidate to improve this year. I don't think it matters much that he hasn't started many games. They had a run-stopping specialist, T.J. Slaton, who started most games last year because he played on first downs, although he only played about 25% of the defensive snaps. Whether or not a player starts (meaning that he plays on the first play of the game) has become increasingly irrelevant.
LLCHESTY
May 24, 2025 at 04:35 pm
Slaton played in 39% of the defensive snaps. It will be interesting to see how his 400+ snaps get divvied up. The two DTs with the most sacks, Leonard Williams and Zack Seiler, both played around 750 snaps compared to Wyatt's 360 so if he improves his run D he should be on the field a lot more. Dexter Lawrence was 3rd in sacks and only played 12 games but when healthy averaged around 800 snaps a season the previous three years.
GregC
May 24, 2025 at 05:56 pm
Thanks for the correction, I should've looked that up first! The Packers didn't even attempt to re-sign Slaton, which makes me wonder if they are willing to sacrifice some of his run-stopping ability in order to generate more pass rush. If so, Wyatt could be playing a lot more.
TKWorldWide
May 25, 2025 at 08:12 am
Why drag Brock Purdy into this?
Leatherhead
May 24, 2025 at 01:05 pm
#6 scoring defense, #3 against the run. We blitz less than just about anybody and yet get more pressure than half the teams in the league....all of whom blitz more.
Last year, in the first game under Hafley, on the road, we gave up over 30 to the Eagles. A few weeks later, the defense didn't show up until we were behind by 20 points to Minnesota and we gave up 31. Over the next 14 games, including playoffs, we only gave up more than 27 only one more time, to Detroit.
Those three games were the only games where we gave up more than 27 points. Three out of eighteen. We also had 6 out of the remaining 15 opponents get between 20-27 points, and 9...half of our opponents, never made it to 20. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the defense improved during the season, and was pretty good with just a few exceptions.
TarynsEyes
May 24, 2025 at 02:12 pm
Just in case you missed what I wrote above.
To those who will offer rankings as an argument, stop, as great stats against bad erases the poor stats against the good, which gives an untrue ranking as to what they really are.
PearlyBakerBest
May 24, 2025 at 08:18 pm
Such flawed thinking. That’s exactly how you tell who they are. How they perform against good or bad teams. Thus the rank.
Leatherhead
May 25, 2025 at 10:05 am
Why don't YOU stop moving the goal posts, or insisting that all our wins are against bad teams and our losses are against good teams? Half of our 18 games last year were against other playoff teams!!
One Immutable Fact: Games are decided by points. The more points you score, the better chance you have of winning. When you have a defense that's consistently holding people to 27 or less, and half the time to under 20, then you've given your team a very good chance to win. It doesn't matter what the sack % is, or the yards/rush, it's the points.
Now....and I know that this is going to surprise you....when a team goes 15-2, probably nobody had real good stats against them. The Packers did better against the Eagles, Lions, and Vikings than most other teams. Philadelphia didn't get held to 22 very often; We gave away 7 on an interception and held Detroit a total of 24....one of Detroit's weakest offensive showings of the year.
The argument that you're only as good as you are against the best....remember the year Michael Strahan set the season record for sacks? And remember how Tauscher kept him locked up in a box all game? So, did Strahan get all those sacks against guys who weren't any good.? Because he sure didn't look like much against Tauscher that day.
Or how about when Reggie White was being held all day (hands to the face) by Eric Williams in Dallas? I guess Reggie just wasn't any good in those games.
No. If you want to throw out a couple of games, like New Orleans, because they were weak, then throw out a couple of games against strong opponents and see what you have left. You want to dismiss the data that argues against your point....that's not fair.
egbertsouse
May 24, 2025 at 04:05 pm
“…pretty good with just a few exceptions.”
Those exceptions being when they played good teams. They were fine against the mediocre and bad teams.
PhantomII
May 24, 2025 at 05:23 pm
I only want to say when you only have a run game and the pass game is minus the "P"...the defense does get thrown under the bus....just like every deep playoff game in memory. So there is that. Let's hope the pass catchers do just that and that ML can create a game plan that also utilize the known 2 best offensive players in the pass game...Kraft AND Jacobs.
Leatherhead
May 25, 2025 at 10:07 am
So the Texans and Rams, both of whom made the playoffs, weren't good teams last year? And losing games by a FG against a couple of the strongest teams counts for nothing?
Turophile
May 24, 2025 at 04:38 pm
Asking question is easy. Projecting answers is tough.
i'll give it a shot with a 30,000 ft view.
Kenny Clark is much as he was last year, solid enough but not playing up to his contract.
Wyatt is slightly better and he was already good.
Enagbare regresses and Van Ness progresses significantly.
Cox improves as he gets more action and no signs of any college disciplinary problems re-surfacing.
Wooden is the exact same in 2025 as he was in 2024.
Gary is a hair better than in 2024, but although good, he never quite hits the ceiling the Packers hoped for.
Sorrell's and Oliver's rookie seasons are good enough to give the Packers hope for their future here.
Brinson does nothing, Stackhouse does not remind us of Slaton, but he does enough to earn his place.
Overall, in 2025 the pass rush is better and the run defense just a notch worse.
Guam
May 25, 2025 at 07:43 am
Generally agree with your outlook except for one line - "Enagnare regresses and Van Ness progresses significantly." Enagbare has been solid if unspectacular during his three seasons and he is still young so I see no reason for decline. Van Ness is more of a question mark for me as he has shown little progress in two seasons. Hopefully the new DL coach can get much more out of him.
stockholder
May 24, 2025 at 06:00 pm
Most of the stats compiled for Clark.
Show a decrease in snaps for him.
Compared to past years.
Wyatts sacks and pressures put him at #10 for dts.
yet over-all he's way down the list.
This DL without the turn-overs,
would be rated at twenty.
If they can over-come the injuries.
There's No reason to think they can't do better.
Clark is the leader of this DL.
He will step -up.
NFLfan
May 24, 2025 at 09:10 pm
I don't have faith in the D-Line. Perhaps one of the new players will surprise us but I am not holding my breath.
Facing strong teams is exactly what the Packers need. It might be painful but the truth is always the best medicine.
LLCHESTY
May 25, 2025 at 09:40 am
Your negativity has gotten as stale and boring as Leatherhead's daily math problems.
Leatherhead
May 25, 2025 at 11:07 am
Or Chesty's penchant to pee on everything so that his scent is on it.
WD
May 26, 2025 at 10:20 am
Van Ness needs to start and get more playing time. Period
Lphill
May 26, 2025 at 11:46 am
Clark and Gary will be gone after this season regardless of performance.