GREEN BAY, Wis. — There are 325 players in the NFL with at least half a sack since Week 9.
Defensive end Rashan Gary, whom the Green Bay Packers are paying $24 million annually as the 13th-highest-paid edge rusher in the NFL, per Over The Cap, is not one of them after ranking fifth in the league through eight weeks with 7 1/2 sacks.
Sacks aren’t the end-all, be-all of edge rusher production, but Gary also ranks 39th in pressure percentage since Week 9 among players with at least 100 pass-rush snaps, according to TruMedia. He doesn’t even have a tackle for loss over that span, which 507 different players do. Even Packers cornerback Shemar Bartholomew, who has played 34 defensive snaps this season and all of them in Week 18, has a tackle for loss. Gary ranked tied for 11th with seven TFLs through the first eight weeks.
So what has happened to the Packers’ marquee pass rusher? According to him, nothing. In a conversation with The Athletic last week, Gary referred to himself as a “top player in this league” and “one of the best.”
He needs to start playing like for the Packers to have a realistic shot at making a playoff run.
“Been getting better throughout the season, being effective, still drawing a lot of attention from the offenses,” Gary said. “A lot of teams don’t wanna run my way. Still getting heavy chipped in protection, but when I get my opps, find a way to be effective in the game and like I said, I’m at the point where I just keep on playing. The plays is gon’ fall and come my way.”
Last month, Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley issued a passionate defense of Gary. He said Gary was defending the run far better than last season and that opposing offenses were scheming in a way to neutralize Gary, whether it was through extra blockers in play action or more runs and screens on third downs.
“And yes, I am defending him,” Hafley said then. “Because I actually think the guy’s playing really well. … I think people look at things very black and white, where you have to look deeper into it, right? And just because a guy might not have pressures in a game or sacks in a game, that doesn’t mean he didn’t play well. Micah Parsons didn’t have a sack in the game last week. Micah Parsons had an unbelievable game last week. I mean, he had totally affected the game, but he didn’t have a sack. So if you’re going to be results based, then you can call it what you want.”
Hafley’s point was fair, but Parsons went two full games without a sack just once this season and tied for second in the NFL in pressure percentage, according to TruMedia. You think teams aren’t devoting extra attention to and scheming against him? Nobody is asking Gary to be Parsons, who’s making $22.5 million more per year, but he can’t pull this vanishing act given his still-hefty price tag, especially with Parsons done for the season. Guys who make as much money as Gary does are expected to produce even when teams do everything they can to ensure they don’t, and especially when teams are more concerned about a guy like Parsons a couple of spots down.
It’s also puzzling that Gary, as head coach Matt LaFleur said earlier this season, “has never been a huge snap-count guy.” Hafley played it off that week as a game-specific thing after Gary played only 54.2 percent of the defensive snaps against the New York Giants in Week 11, adding that he anticipated Gary’s share would rise. Over his final six games of the regular season, Gary’s defensive snap count percentages were 72.7, 69.8, 57.1, 60.3, 57.8 and 44.7, respectively. For comparison, Parsons played 53 more snaps than Gary this season, even while being limited in the first couple of games after the trade and missing nine quarters that he would’ve otherwise played in after tearing his ACL. Gary hasn’t been on an injury report all season.
When asked recently about Gary needing to be better, both Hafley and LaFleur steered attention away from their absent pass rusher and instead emphasized their desire for everyone to be better.
“I think there’s things that I’m satisfied with and there’s things we want to get better at,” Hafley said this week. “We talked this week again and there’s things he wants to get better at and then there’s some things that he’s doing really well. To make a run in the playoffs, we’re going to need more out of everybody and I think he would tell you the same thing. Whether that’s pass rush, whether it’s setting edges, whether it’s getting off blocks and making plays, he needs to really take a step as a leader of our team as we get into the playoffs along with the rest of the guys, and I’m looking forward to seeing him do that.”
Whether Gary does or not could directly influence how far the Packers go in what could be his final stretch with the team.
The 2019 first-round pick has two seasons left after this one on a contract extension he signed in 2023. According to OTC, the Packers would free up $11 million in cap space if they cut Gary before June 1. Green Bay currently ranks 26th in 2026 cap space at about $11.4 million over the cap.
However, Parsons’ torn ACL might complicate such a move. If the Packers anticipate Parsons missing the first month of next season, can they even afford to release Gary? Lukas Van Ness, the 2023 first-round pick, hasn’t exactly shown he can handle such a responsibility. Have rookie defensive ends Barryn Sorrell and Collin Oliver, who has played in only one game due to recurring hamstring injuries, done enough to make coaches think they can hold down the fort until Parsons returns? It’s not far-fetched to envision Gary back for another season, but you also wouldn’t blame the Packers for cutting him loose.
You simply can’t make that much money and produce this little, no matter the reasons for such silence.
Three lingering questions
How is Josh Jacobs feeling?
The Packers’ feature running back injured his left knee on the MetLife Stadium turf early in Week 11 and has battled the ailment since, a stretch that included aggravating the injury in Week 15. Jacobs has been limited or resting entirely in recent weeks. Ahead of the wild-card round, Jacobs said taking Week 18 off with nothing to play for helped refresh a body that has been battered and bruised for the second half of the season.
“My body coming into this game is the best I’ve felt probably in the last six weeks, so it’s pretty good, pretty good situation to be in,” Jacobs said.
Can Trevon Diggs contribute?
The 2021 first-team All-Pro cornerback has been in Green Bay for only slightly more than a week, but it sounds like he’ll be on the field in some capacity come Saturday night after playing 33 defensive snaps in Week 18 and making a couple of notable plays both in coverage and as a tackler on the perimeter (No. 2 outside corner Carrington Valentine has been shoddy in that regard). Diggs said he stayed up “all night” last week studying the playbook before debuting in Minnesota. Diggs, who intrigues Hafley with his length and size, wore a wristband with play calls on it during the game to help, and Hafley said safeties Xavier McKinney, Evan Williams and Javon Bullard can guide Diggs on the field, too.
“I thought for being here really one practice, I thought he did a really nice job,” Hafley said of Diggs’ performance against the Vikings. “It’s cool to see the last couple of days how he’s integrated with our players, how he’s been in meetings. Overall, I just think he has more confidence right now in our scheme, so I’d be very comfortable to play him. … When he does play, there will not be a limit in the playbook.”
Will Zach Tom play?
LaFleur said early in the week that his franchise right tackle was expected to play after not doing so since Week 15 because of a knee injury. However, LaFleur backtracked slightly Thursday, when he gave Tom a rest day at practice, saying the team would give Tom until inactives are due at 5:30 p.m. (CT) on Saturday to prove he can play. Tom also said after Wednesday’s practice that he wasn’t feeling great, “but better,” and that playing Saturday “was” the plan — past tense. He also added that it was too early to tell whether he’d play. The Packers listed Tom as questionable on Thursday’s game status report.
“It’d be great,” offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich said of potentially getting Tom back. “He’s working really hard in practice. Yeah, it’d mean a lot to our offense. He’s been a great player for us for a while and yeah, it’d really help out.”
