{"id":700930,"date":"2026-06-13T03:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T03:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/700930\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T03:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T03:01:08","slug":"lukas-van-ness-still-seeking-his-breakout-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/700930\/","title":{"rendered":"Lukas Van Ness still seeking his breakout season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Packers exercised the fifth-year option on Lukas Van Ness\u2019 contract despite the edge rusher\u2019s first three seasons being disappointing. <\/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 made only two starts, played only nine games and totaled only 1.5 sacks in 2025 due to a foot injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably not been my ideal career<\/a> if you would have talked to me in 2023 when I was a fresh rookie coming in here, but everyone\u2019s got their own process and their own path,\u201d Van Ness said this week, via Steve Megargee of The Associated Press. \u201cI\u2019ve trusted the path. I feel really good about where I\u2019m at.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Ness has never generated more than 27 quarterback pressures in a season, nor higher than an 11.2 percent pressure rate, per Next Gen Stats. He has never played more than 40 percent of the snaps in a season despite playing all 17 games his first two seasons.<\/p>\n

But the Packers haven\u2019t given up on him, and Van Ness hasn\u2019t given up on himself. He still has a chance to live up to the team\u2019s expectations and his expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think pressure is a privilege to have,\u201d Van Ness said. \u201cWe\u2019re obviously in a blessed position where there\u2019s people watching our spot and people are obviously going to have their own opinions, but at the end of the day I think you\u2019ve just got to believe in yourself and believe in what you\u2019re hearing in the building from your coaches and from your circle and other players in the defensive room.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Packers exercised the fifth-year option on Lukas Van Ness\u2019 contract despite the edge rusher\u2019s first three seasons…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-700930","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\/700930","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=700930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}