The Green Bay Packers are notorious for moving on from underperforming veterans in favor of younger and less expensive options, and this offseason doesn’t appear like it will play out any differently.
“Green Bay won’t be big spenders with its coaching staff potentially in flux if the team has a disappointing 2026 season,” ESPN’s Ben Solak wrote on Tuesday, January 13.
The Packers also have a $12 million salary cap deficit to manage heading into the offseason and can find significant savings by cutting a couple of pricey veteran players who didn’t play up to their contracts in 2025.
Chief among those players is pass-rusher Rashan Gary, who will enter the third year of his four-year, $96 million extension next season.
A Pro Bowler in 2024, Gary was a middling pass-rusher — ranking 52nd out of 115 qualifying edge defenders, per Pro Football Focus (PFF) — who the Packers paid the 13th-highest salary at the position in the NFL last season.
“Zero sacks for 10 weeks. Only 8 ‘quick’ pressures. 11.9 pass-rush win rate. Lowest PFF pass-rush grade among edges with at least 60 pressures,” Zach Kruse of Packers Wire wrote Thursday. “I’ve fought the ‘pressure over sacks’ fight, but Gary’s 2025 season is a terrific rebuttal.”
Rashan Gary’s Production Did Not Increase, Despite Packers’ Addition of Micah Parsons
GettyPass-rusher Micah Parsons of the Green Bay Packers.
One can argue strongly that Gary’s season was actually even worse than Kruse laid out, as the general statistical categories of “pressures” can be misleading in terms of the impact certain defensive plays that count as pressures actually have on a quarterback.
For instance, a QB has four seconds to throw in the pocket, he is flushed out by a rusher who comes in late, but the signal-caller still makes a relatively unaffected throw down the field after escaping the defender with zero contact. That might count as a pressure, but it wasn’t a meaningful play in the flow of the game.
A better measure of effective pressure is the quick pressure category Kruse mentioned, of which Gary had eight, along with just 7.5 sacks, across 16 games played. And that was after the Packers added superstar edge defender Micah Parsons, who added 12.5 sacks over 14 games this season before his ACL injury and earned Pro-Bowl and first-team All-Pro honors.
Parsons’ presence on pass-rush downs created more favorable matchups for Gary than he’s ever had before, but instead of a career campaign, Gary’s production remained relatively static year-over-year.
Lukas Van Ness Offers Iffy Alternative to Rashan Gary as Packers’ No. 2 Pass-Rusher
GettyPass-rusher Lukas Van Ness of the Green Bay Packers.
Gary just turned 28 years old and will play his eight professional season in 2026. He has never produced a 10-sack season and his salary cap hit next year is a whopping $28 million. That figure jumps to $31 million in 2027.
Green Bay can save $19.5 million against the cap in the upcoming campaign and $22.5 million two years from now by cutting Gary with a post-June 1 designation. The dead cap hits in each of those league years would total $8.5 million each.
Gary still has juice left, but Green Bay can probably find similar production at a far lower cost and reallocate the rest of its savings to other roster needs.
Former first-round pick Lukas Van Ness was the team’s third pass-rusher in 2025. He also played poorly with just seven QB hits, three tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks in nine games played but carries a cap hit of just $5.5 million next year.
Green Bay can exercise a fifth-year club option on Van Ness’s deal for 2027 this spring, though his unreliability makes assuming that extra cost an unlikely play for the Packers.
What could make sense is Green Bay putting pressure on Van Ness in a prove-it season by elevating him into the role the No. 2 pass-rusher alongside Parsons. Van Ness will have one year to show Green Bay he’s worth on a new deal, or to rebuild his value before hitting the the free-agent market.
The Packers could fill out the position group via a value play in free agency or a mid-round draft pick with upside, then rely on Parsons to make everyone around him better upon his return from ACL surgery.
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