The Packers have a decision to make on the fifth-year option on the contract of defensive lineman Lukas Van Ness. Do they or don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n
The Packers face a May 1 deadline to exercise the option for 2027, which would guarantee him a projected $15.381 million.<\/p>\n
The 13th overall pick in 2023 has 8.5 sacks, 23 quarterback hits and 84 tackles in 43 games in three seasons. He has made only two starts and played only nine games in 2025 due to a foot injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about what we think he\u2019s going to do in the future, not what he\u2019s done in the past,\u201d Gutekunst said Tuesday, via Bill Huber of Sports Illustrated. \u201cSo, that\u2019s kind of how we look at things. We did that with Devonte [Wyatt] last year. If that\u2019s the decision we decide to do, I won\u2019t have a problem with that<\/a> at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Van Ness has never played more than 40 percent of the snaps in a season despite playing all 17 games his first two seasons. They need better production from him this season in what would be a contract year if the Packers decline the fifth-year option.<\/p>\n \u201cI would\u2019ve liked to get those games back that he missed this past year because he was playing at such a high level for us,\u201d Gutekunst said. \u201cAnytime you miss those kind of games in a year, it kind of stunts you a little bit.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was playing very well for us. It\u2019s always tough to get back to that level when you have that pause in the season. No, we feel really good about him, where he\u2019s headed, what he\u2019s done for us so far and what he\u2019ll do for us in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Packers have a decision to make on the fifth-year option on the contract of defensive lineman Lukas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-490076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}