Every year there seem to be a couple players placed at flashpoints on the roster that have outsized individual impacts on overall team success. To me, it’s pretty clear that Lukas Van Ness is going to be one of those players in 2026. The current makeup of this defensive front heaps a whole lot of pressure squarely onto his shoulders. In other words, the Green Bay Packers are counting on Lukas Van Ness to deliver. But is that the right call? Or will Brian Gutekunst continue to regret this draft pick? Like it or not, this will be one of the more pivotal questions of the 2026 Packers season.
Let’s get into it.
You guys know me by now. I’m never afraid to sprinkle in a little bit of subjectivity when I write. So, here we go. Here is my own very subjective personal opinion:
When healthy, Lukas Van Ness was the 2nd best defensive lineman on the Green Bay Packers. He was way more impactful than anybody gave him credit for, and he did not get nearly as many snaps as he should have.
Now that you’ve made it past my extremely outlandish claim, please allow me to back it up!
First, let’s start with some numbers. According to PFF, Lukas Van Ness recorded a pass rush win rate of 16.2% last season. That was second best on the team. Rashan Gary came in at 11.9%. Kingsley Enagabare was at 10.5%. And of course Micah Parsons led the team at 22.6%.
I know those numbers might not sound like much more than useless jargon, so maybe this last bit is necessary to really drive it home.
When filtered for volume, 16.2% is the 12th best pass rush win rate in the entire NFL! Yes, Lukas Van Ness had a better win rate than Maxx Crosby, Jared Verse, TJ Watt, Travon Walker and Brian Burns.
Here’s the most encouraging part, his rapid ascension seemed to come out of nowhere. Many prominent voices had already named Lukas Van Ness a “draft bust”, but under the tutelage of new defensive line coach Demarcus Covington, he’s looked like a completely different player. For reference, LVN posted a measly 9.5% win rate in 2024. A little bit of quick math here would tell you that LVN was 74% more disruptive as a pass rusher when he was on the field in 2025. Could it just be the new coach? Who knows, but it sure seems to be coming together for LVN.
Here is a perfect example of the new and improved Lukas Van Ness we saw in 2025. A well executed euro step for a quick pressure. File this one under, “things we would have never seen 2023-2024 LVN attempt to do.”
I’d also say it’s worth noting that these pass rush numbers would have likely been even better had LVN stayed healthy. Lukas was off to a rip-roaring start to the season up until he got hurt in the Cincinnati game. At that point, his pressure rate and pass rush win rate numbers were even a bit higher than the 16.2% figure I referenced earlier. Upon returning from injury, he had a few real quiet games that dragged his numbers down. Filtering those games out looks and smells like true homer behavior, but it would boost him even higher up that list of disruptive pass rushers.
Next thing to highlight is the run defense. LVN’s always had the traits to be a great run defender, but hadn’t really been able to pull it together. To me, that had been the most disappointing part of his early career. The one thing that was supposed to come natural for him just didn’t show up. Well, that changed this year. Lukas Van Ness led the team in run stop percentage, notched the 20th best run defense PFF grade in the entire NFL, and almost doubled his run defense win rate from 2024.
Here’s an example of this in action. Note that he’s doing this from the 4i alignment. Even though it’s a backside action I still find this type of play incredibly encouraging for the Green Bay Packers. Lukas Van Ness surviving against the run, even when moved to the interior, is an awesome development.
Development is the key word there. The Green Bay Packers drafted Van Ness as a developmental project back in 2023, and I believe they are just now beginning to see the fruits of their labors. The problem now is that the team needs to start seeing a lot more of those fruits, and they need that right now!
Rashan Gary is almost assuredly out the door this summer. Kingsley Enagbare is an unrestricted free agent that may not re-sign, Brenton Cox likely won’t be tendered as a restricted free agent, and most importantly Micah Parsons is rehabbing a torn ACL. That’s a lot of uncertainty at the defensive end position.
All that means that Lukas Van Ness, Barryn Sorrel and Collin Oliver are the only true locks to be on the team and available for week 1 next year. So, yeah that is why people are saying that DE is a sneaky need this offseason.
D-line depth was a problem in 2026. Think about how much better the early season defense was, or how much better the defense seemed to be in the first halves of games. It often felt like the floodgates opened up as the second half wore on. Each game was a microcosm of the whole season as well. Few defenses were worse than the Green Bay Packers of December and January.
For my money, much of that can be attributed to a lack of depth on the defensive line. Those guys were just run ragged, and injuries to key players only made things worse. Addressing that depth is going to be a key task for Brian Gutekunst this summer. If he’s able to do that, the positive ripple effect will flow upward and affect guys like Lukas Van Ness.
As such, I would expect Gutekunst to address the depth of this unit in the summer. It’s true that you can never have too many pass rushers. But I would vehemently fight back against anyone who says that Lukas Van Ness isn’t ready to be one of those pass rushers. Yes, he’s not Christian Gonzalez and he’ll never be Jaxon Smith-Njigba, but LVN is aiming to make a lot of Green Bay Packers fans eat their words.
