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Welcome to our update of the Green Bay Packers’ defensive depth chart over the last two weeks. If you want to read the companion article covering the offensive side of the ball, you can find that HERE. Most importantly, this article will cover how the Packers adjusted to losing defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt, who is now out for the year, with their Week 14 rotation against the Chicago Bears.
As always, all of the snap count data below is hand-charted and includes plays with post-snap penalties (like holding) but not pre-snap penalties (like a false start), spikes or kneels. Cells in red mean that a player was unable to play in the game due to injury. Cells in yellow mean that a player dropped out of the game due to injury. Cells in black mean that a player was a healthy scratch.
The Packers don’t really get to control their defensive personnel because so much of defense is just matching the offense’s personnel and down and distance. With that being said, Green Bay’s plans over the last two weeks were very different. Against the Detroit Lions, the team played a majority of their snaps out of nickel sets. Against the Chicago Bears, the plan was clearly for the Bears to hold onto the football and lean into the run, which forced the Packers to play their base 4-3 personnel the most.
One thing I do want to note about the last couple of weeks, though, is that since the Philadelphia Eagles game, the Packers have decided to start playing a 3-4 defense when offenses play six-offensive-line sets. You can call it a 5-2 if you want, since it’s really rooted with three defensive tackles, two defensive ends and two off-ball linebackers. Look for that to start popping up more in short-yardage situations moving forward.
In Weeks 10, 11 and now 14, Kingsley Enagbare has basically played as many snaps on the edge as Rashan Gary. Whenever Lukas Van Ness returns to the team, it will be interesting to see how the defensive end rotation adapts. The Packers seem to be leaning on Enagbare more in run-heavy scripts, in part because it forces more rotations in general and in part because Enagbare seems to be better at playing the run than Gary.
Green Bay also has to make a decision soon on whether to bring up Brenton Cox Jr. (IR) and/or Collin Oliver (PUP) from the injury lists. Next week, the Packers will need to officially bring these players up to the 53-man roster or shut them down for the remainder of the 2025 season. Last week, Cox was listed as questionable on Green Bay’s final injury report of the week, while Oliver was listed as out. That’s a sign that Cox is closer to a return than Oliver.
There are a couple of big pieces of information in this one.
First of all, the Packers healthy scratched Nazir Stackhouse in favor of...
