Acme Packing Company
Let’s finally turn our attention to the defensive side of the ball in our positional preview series. First up is the interior defensive line, where the Green Bay Packers’ new 3-4 defense should help the run game that seemed to wear down as games progressed in 2025. Still, there are some personnel questions going into the 2026 season.
By all accounts, Devonte Wyatt should return to the Packers from his ankle injury around the start of training camp. So far, he hasn’t practiced with the team this offseason in the practices that have been open to the media.
The story of Wyatt’s career thus far has been that he’s been one of the league’s best players in terms of creating interior pressure, but he has been about average in stopping the run. The assumption is that he’s going to be a starting 3-4 defensive end on the team, mostly playing in the B-gap between the guard and tackle, and as the undertackle (3-technique) in nickel sets in 2026.
Arguably the Packers’ biggest free agent signing, Javon Hargrave’s best film in his NFL career has come when he’s played as a B-gap defender, but he just came off a year where he played nose tackle for the Minnesota Vikings. With that being said, Brian Flores’ blitz- and stunt-heavy defense is different than what basically anyone else in the NFL runs right now, so there’s a question about whether Hargrave will play end or tackle for Green Bay on base downs.
Even in a relatively “down” year, Hargrave was one of the more well-rounded defensive linemen in the league in 2025, contributing as both a pass-rusher and run defender. Hopefully, his reunion with Jonathan Gannon, whom he played for with the Philadelphia Eagles, can add even more life back into his game.
If Javon Hargraves starts at nose tackle, there’s a good chance that Karl Brooks is going to be the other starting defensive end on the team. Brooks started seven games last year, the first time he’s ever stepped into the starting role at the professional level.
Unfortunately, Brooks had a down year in 2025 by his standards, recording just a half-sack and one tackle for loss after posting 7.5 sacks and 10 TFLs in his previous two seasons off the bench. It might be more effective for the team to use Brooks as a pass-rushing specialist who is mostly used in subpackages, as he was used earlier in his career.
Worth noting: Brooks played 143 snaps of special teams last year, which is an incredibly high number for an interior defensive lineman. Usually, those players get rest in the kicking game, outside of playing the field goal rush unit. Forcing Brooks to play that many special teams snaps while also having him be a part-time starter (he played 59 percent of defensive snaps in games he was active for in 2025) clearly was too much of a workload for him.
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