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Most of the Green Bay Packers’ major roster decisions are going to come on the defensive side of the ball at cutdowns. Considering that the Packers haven’t had more offensive players than defensive players since Week 3 of special team coordinator Rich Bisaccia’s first season with the team, though, this shouldn’t come as a shock.
Here, we’ll continue our tracking of which defenders have played first-team snaps with the defense this year, following the first-team’s single 10-play drive against the New York Jets. If you want to read our article breaking down the two drives on offense, from a personnel standpoint, you can check it out here.
I will note, this might be the last time we’re going to see the Packers’ first-team unit on video. After Green Bay’s loss to the Jets, head coach Matt LaFleur stated that his plan is not to play the starters against the Indianapolis Colts next week. For the next two weeks, the Packers will have joint practices with their upcoming preseason opponents.
Defensive End
For the snap count tables we’ll be discussing, FN means reps on Family Night with the first-team defense and W1 is the Packers’ game against the Jets. A red cell means the player missed the entire practice/game with injury, while a yellow cell means a player dropped out due to injury. The order players are presented will be our best guess at the current depth chart.
If you’ve been following news from Green Bay this summer, it’s been obvious that Lukas Van Ness is going to start opposite Rashan Gary in 2025. Unless there’s an injury, Van Ness will make his first start since high school back in 2019 when the Packers take on the Detroit Lions in Week 1.
Behind them, there’s uncertainty. Van Ness, as a non-starter, already played 428 snaps on defense last year, which was on par with Kingsley Enagbare’s 511. Enagbare was the team’s starting defensive end following the trade of Preston Smith to the Pittsburgh Steelers. On top of that, Van Ness also played 221 snaps of special teams in 2024, which was the fourth-most on the team. Enagbare isn’t too far behind him with 184 of his own there.
Overall, special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia leaned heavily into the defensive end position to play roles that are typically filled by linebackers or tight ends on the punt team, punt return team and kickoff team. So this begs the question: If LVN is going to be playing more defense, how will the Packers be able to make up those special teams reps?
Rookie fourth-round pick Barryn Sorrell didn’t get playing time with the first-team defense on Saturday night, but he was on the first-team kick return team. He was flagged for a penalty on the opening snap of the game.
Rookie fifth-round pick Collin Oliver hasn’t practiced with the team at all during training camp due to a hamstring issue. Head coach Matt LaFleur said only two injuries going into training camp were...
