Amidst a down season, many Green Bay Packer fans forgot how incredible 2021-2023 Rashan Gary was. While a return to peak form for Gary isn’t a given, it could go a long way towards fixing some of the problems the Packers had rushing the passer in 2024.

After a mostly impressive season in which the Packers won 11 games, all eyes have turned to a few deficiencies that held the team back from their ultimate goal last season. Possibly chief among the crucial weaknesses on last year’s team was their pass rush. The Packers front four went quiet far too often last year. At times they struggled to impact the game, particularly against top tier offenses with well coached offensive lines. As a result, DC Jeff Hafley was forced to send exotic pressures and blitz frequently in order to generate pressure, something Matt Lafleur publicly bemoaned multiple times. 

Since we rarely see teams without great pass rush units make deep runs into the playoffs, it felt like a safe bet that Green Bay would make sizable investments there this offseason. Personally, I expected draft prospects like Mike Green, Shemar Stewart, Bradyn Swinson, Nic Scourton or Donovan Ezeiruaku to be options for Green Bay in round 1. 4 of those 5 names were still available when the Packers drafted in round 1, but they didn’t take any one of them. In fact, they didn’t invest draft capital into the pass rush or the defense at all until they took Barryn Sorrell in round 4. This was a microcosm of the Packers whole offseason, where they generally seemed content with their pass rush personnel. Their actions this offseason seem to say they feel that internal improvement and improved coaching on the D-line will be more than enough to fix their pass rush. 

If this is going to be the case, certain players must play better in 2025 than they did in 2024, and Rashan Gary is one of those. Possibly more than any other player on this roster, Rashan Gary needs to bounce back in 2025. 

Now Gary was not bad in 2024 necessarily. He recorded 47 total pressures which led the team and ranked 31st leaguewide. He also notched a more than respectable 8 sacks. On top of this, Gary was truly one of the best run defending defensive ends in the NFL. While I know this isn’t the sexiest trait for a defensive end to have, it sure does matter. On tape, Gary’s force in the run game pops off the screen. Outside runs/stretch plays to his side of the formation did not tend to go well for most opposing offenses. On wide zone runs, Gary has a strong ability to routinely set a near immovable edge and then collapse back inwards to blow up cutback lanes for the running back. All this goes to show that while Gary had a down year, he was still a useful player in 2024.

However, Gary is being paid like a top tier pass rusher in the NFL and he has not performed up to that billing recently. Here’s a few troubling pass rush stats that tell the story of the 2024 season for Rashan: 

  • – Gary’s 47 pressures were by far the lowest number he’s had in a full season since becoming a starter for the Packers. 
  • – Rashan’s 16.2% pass rush win rate on true pass sets ranked 70th among just edge players 
  • – Lions DE Aidan Hutchinson had 45 pressures and 8 sacks – 98% of the pass rush production that Rashan Gary had, and he did it in just 46% of the snaps that Gary had due to an injury shortened season for Hutchinson
  • – The eventual Super Bowl champion Eagles, a team with one of the best pass rushes in the NFL last year, had 4 separate players on their team that created more pressures than Rashan Gary did last season. (Carter, Williams, Sweat, Smith) 

I feel that I’ve presented a pretty pessimistic case for Rashan Gary to this point. To be honest, for large chunks of this offseason I had been feeling pretty pessimistic about his outlook. That was until I decided to go back and remind myself how good he was from 2021-2023. 

So, I recently went back to watch some tape from Gary’s 2021 season and boy was it exciting. In the games I watched, Gary played with extreme power in his hands. You could tell that lineman had to prepare for his knockback power on every snap, and this set up an impressive array of pass rushing moves as counters as well. If anybody wants to re-experience the thrill of prime Rashan Gary, go back and watch his game against the Steelers in 2021. And keep in mind that Dan Moore, the guy that Gary repeatedly rag-dolled in this matchup, just got paid 80 million dollars by the Tennessee Titans. From a pressure standpoint, Gary was the second most productive pass rusher in the NFL that year. It’s worth a reminder, Gary’s contract looked like an absolute steal for the Packers when it was signed. 

Now I understand many doubt Gary has the potential to get back to this level, but I saw a stat the other day that really interested me.

I will admit there’s a couple different ways you could look at this stat, but I see it as an indicator that his pass rush prowess is still in there somewhere. Having played such a high volume of 3rd downs this past season, a 23.5% pressure rate doesn’t come by happenstance. This to me shows that Gary still has the juice deep down. So, the question becomes why wasn’t Gary able to play at this level on all 3 downs? 

Was the new scheme asking too much of him against the run on early downs? Was it poor position coaching?(I will note that Jason Rebrovich was not only a holdover from Joe Barry’s staff last year, but he also got a weird promotion moving from OLB coach to full on DL coach, and was pretty immediately fired after the season ended.) 

Whatever it was, I have full trust in Jeff Hafley to get to the bottom of it. I am sure that Hafley is aware of Gary’s struggles last season and has spent a large amount of time this offseason working to tailor this scheme to better fit the abilities of Rashan Gary on early downs. It should also be noted that Green Bay’s new defensive line coach, Demarcus Covington, has a long history of getting the most out of pass rushers. You’ll need to look no further than Matthew Judon, who had his best years in New England before dropping off a cliff right as he left Covington and New England. 

This is going to be a big year for Rashan Gary, but he’s as well set up to succeed as he’s ever been. The Packers are counting on him. Inevitably, the team will need somebody to be able to create pressure in key moments of big games, and the Packers are paying him to be that guy. Many have and continue to count him out, but I am begging you not to do the same. I understand the numbers haven’t been great lately, but let’s give him one more chance before we write him off completely. Take the stat from the tweet above as evidence. Rashan Gary can still be that guy, and if he proves me right, he could fix the Packers pass rush all by himself!