GREEN BAY, Wis. — Someone was going to need to shoulder the load for the Green Bay Packers’ pass rush for the first month-and-a-half of the season sans Micah Parsons, and it appears Lukas Van Ness is answering the call.
It also appears that the 25-year-old is finally making the long-awaited leap that the Packers hoped he was destined for when they spent a first-round pick on him in 2023. There were moments in Sunday’s comeback win over the New York Jets when it felt like Van Ness was one of a handful of players keeping the Packers in the game, even when they were trailing by double digits with 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter.
Van Ness helped spur the Packers’ defensive efforts, ultimately erasing a 17-7 deficit to send the game into overtime, where rookie kicker Trey Smack booted a 26-yard game-winning field goal.
After recording a sack in the Sept. 13 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, Van Ness finished with 1.5 in East Rutherford, splitting it with rookie Dani Dennis-Sutton on the Jets’ first possession of the overtime period. By the time the game was over, Van Ness finished with a team-high of 10 tackles, six total pressures, three tackles for a loss, four quarterback hits, and a career-best of seven stops, which is defined by Pro Football Focus as “tackles that constitute a failure for the offense.” Among all edge defenders in Week 2, only Will Anderson Jr. of the Houston Texans had more stops than Van Ness.
Let’s sit back and enjoy some of his handiwork together.
