Lukas Van Ness' underwhelming production clashes with his high draft status. Green Bay Packers GM Brian Gutekunst faces a costly decision: extend a risk or admit a draft miss.
Lukas Van Ness has put the Green Bay Packers between a rock and a hard place. Specifically, he's put general manager Brian Gutekunst in a pressure cooker.
Gutekunst took a shot on Van Ness as a raw defensive end coming out of Iowa in the 2023 NFL Draft. Van Ness never even started at Iowa, but Gutekunst saw a 6-foot-5, 272-pound freak athlete who he felt he could chisel into a superstar pass-rusher at the NFL level.
That's why the Packers selected Van Ness with the 13th overall pick in that draft.
We're now three years into Van Ness' NFL career and he's not lived up to his potential. That's to say the least.
In three seasons and 43 games playe in, he's notched just 8.5 sacks.
That wouldn't be exciting production from a fifth-rounder. It's extremely disappointing out of pick No. 13 overall — injured be damned.
The problem for the Gutekunst and the Packers is that Van Ness is heading into the final year of his rookie deal, and the Packers have until May 1st to decide if they're going to exercise his fifth-year team option.
If they do, they'll owe Van Ness nearly $15 million in guaranteed money in 2027.
If they don't, though, Gutekunst will essentially be admitting that selecting Van Ness where he did was a massive reach and likely a failure.
That's a tough place to be if you're an NFL GM, so it's interesting to note that "capologist" Ken Ingalls believes the Packers will pick up that option on the former Hawkeye.
Picking up the option makes sense if you believe that Van Ness is just one fully healthy season away from catching his stride.
He has shown flashes of being a strong EDGE defender, and he's even big enough to move down into the three-techinque spot in certain packages. Flashes don't make an NFL career, though. Consistency does.
There's been a notable lack of consistency so far in Van Ness' NFL career. Micah Parsons may believe in him, but he hasn't shown much to suggest that Parsons was being anything but a hype man when he joined the team early last season.
"I believe in him," Parsons had said of Van Ness. "I told him, I said, 'I think you can be like a Cameron Wake, [or] you could be like a Julius Peppers. You're a 4.5 [40-yard dash] guy, and it's time for you to show it.' And we're going to put it together. We're going to keep working out together ... and I'm excited to see how that turns out for him."
Oct 12, 2025; Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA; Green Bay Packers defensive end Lukas van Ness (90) celebrates his sack of Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Flacco (16) during the third quarter of their game at Lambeau Field. Mandatory Credit: Mark Hoffman-USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images.Yes, he struggled with injuries, but Van Ness went on to finish the 2025 season with 19 tackles and 1.5 sacks in nine games. Extrapolate that over a 17-game season and it's still under 40 tackles and under three sacks.
That's just not good enough, and it's not worth paying $15 million for one season ahead of time just to cover up a mistake.
The Packers need to cut their losses and move on from Van Ness when they can. Hopefully, Ingall's prediction is wrong, because it will be a mistake.