Packers Likely to Demote $17 Million ‘X Factor’ Absent Breakout Year

The Green Bay Packers need considerably more production from multiple units on the roster in 2025 if they hope to truly contend and avoid the early playoff exits that have defined the Jordan Love era to this point.

Chief among those areas is the pass rush, where third-year player and former first-round pick Lukas Van Ness is on the cusp of a turning point in his NFL career.

Max Chadwick and Dalton Wasserman of Pro Football Focus ranked all 32 rosters across the league on May 29, including each team’s biggest weakness from 2024 and X-factor in 2025. In the case of the Packers, they dubbed the defensive line the team’s biggest problem last season before naming Van Ness as its X-factor heading into the upcoming campaign.

“Speaking of needing to improve along the defensive line, third-year man Lukas Van Ness needs to be at the forefront of the effort,” Chadwick and Wasserman wrote. “His 52.9 PFF overall grade in 2024 ranked well outside the top 100 qualified edge defenders. He has accumulated just 42 pressures and a well-below-average 8.9% pass-rush win rate through his first two NFL seasons. If he doesn’t show signs of life this year, the Packers will likely be searching for other options up front next offseason.”

Lukas Van Ness Facing Critical NFL Campaign in Third Season

“Searching for other options,” as the PFF writers described it, doesn’t necessarily mean that Van Ness will be out of Green Bay if he fails to live up to his draft position (No. 13 overall out of Iowa in 2023).

However, it would likely mean a demotion and would also likely impact his longterm future with the Packers along with his longterm financial future in the league.

Van Ness is entering the third season of his four-year rookie contract, which is worth $17.4 million total. As a former first-rounder, Green Bay must decide next summer whether or not to exercise its fifth-year option on Van Ness for the 2027 campaign on what will likely be a significant salary figure.

Should the Packers choose not to exercise that option, Van Ness will hit free agency one year earlier. However, that would also indicate a lack of belief in him on behalf of the franchise that drafted him, which wouldn’t bode well for Van Ness’s playing time in 2026. And that relative lack of opportunity, in turn, would likely impact his second NFL contract, whether it be from Green Bay or elsewhere in the league.

Packers Focused on Adding Help for QB Jordan Love in 2025 NFL Draft

The Packers focused on offense in the 2025 draft more than on its defensive deficiencies, taking two wide receivers and an offensive tackle in the first three rounds.

That focus clearly indicates that Green Bay is intent on adding help for Love in the pass game following some criticism of the quarterback’s play in 2024 as compared to his work the season prior. Former Packers backup quarterback Kurt Benkert took issue with those concerns on Monday, June 2, however.

“Jordan Love was a top five quarterback in a lot of key statistics that actually track how he performed. Most mainstream statistics only track result of play,” Benkert posted to X. “The amount of passes dropped completely changed the public perception that otherwise wasn’t taken into account. Turn on the film, Jordan balled out last year.”