GREEN BAY — The Green Bay Packers know that Micah Parsons isn’t walking through their locker-room door. 

Now, the star edge rusher might come through on crutches with a bulky protective brace on his left knee in the wake of the ACL reconstruction surgery he underwent earlier this week. But it’ll be to provide moral support and advice to his teammates — not to harass quarterbacks and tilt the field in the Packers’ favor like he’d been until his knee injury felled him on Dec. 14 in Denver.

Perhaps he can give defensive end runningmate, Rashan Gary, a pep talk that gets Gary going. Because the Packers desperately need more from him.

Not only have the Packers, who were leading the Broncos, 23-21, at the time of Parsons’ injury, not won a game since, but they have registered only one sack: Linebacker Quay Walker’s zero-yard takedown of Baltimore Ravens backup quarterback Tyler Huntley in last Saturday night’s dispiriting loss at Lambeau Field

And Gary has gone from starting the season like gangbusters when initially paired with Parsons — Gary registered 4.5 sacks in the first three weeks of the season — to a non-factor who played just 34 of the Packers’ 76 defensive snaps (45%) in their 41-24 loss to the Ravens.

Saturday night marked the ninth consecutive game in which Gary failed to register a sack or a tackle for loss. His last sack came on Oct. 26, when he took ex-Packers four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers down twice in a win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Less than three weeks after defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley delivered an impassioned defense of Gary, it’s hard to understand how the 2019 first-round draft pick — barely two years removed from signing a four-year, $96 million contract extension in October 2023 — hasn’t been able to help offset the loss of Parsons.

Now, barring a 2.5-sack performance in Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Gary will finish his seventh NFL season without having ever put up double-digit sacks.

For comparison, Parsons, who was the 12th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft just as Gary was the 12th pick in 2019, became the first player in league history to register at least 12 sacks in each of his first five NFL seasons.

Against the Ravens, defensive ends Kingsley Enagbare (60 snaps/79%) and Lukas Van Ness (47 snaps/62%) played more extensively.

Told those snap numbers and asked if the Packers needed more from Gary, head coach Matt LaFleur paused before sidestepping the question.

“I would say that we need more from everybody. Just, the collective,” LaFleur said. “Everybody has got to raise their level.

“Not even raise their level. They’ve got to do their job. How ‘bout that? All 11 on the field, got to do their job. Nothing more, nothing less. … Do your job. Everybody does their job, we’ve got a chance.”

The Packers are meticulous about listing all players who are dealing with injuries, even relatively minor ones that won’t sideline them by gameday, on the official injury report. Gary hasn’t been on the report at all during his nine-game sack-free streak.

Asked if Gary has been dealing with an illness or some sort of undisclosed injury, LaFleur replied, “No.”

Then, after a pause, he added, “I mean, all these guys are battling soreness, fatigue. It’s a long year. But I wouldn’t say it’s not anything that any team’s not dealing with at this stage of the game.”

Over the last nine games, Gary has seven quarterback hits, 22 pressures, one pass breakup and caused an Evan Williams interception of a J.J. McCarthy pass during the Packers’ last matchup with the Vikings at Lambeau Field on Nov. 23.

Gary was credited with one assisted tackle and one quarterback hit against the Ravens, according to the official scorebook. NFL Next Gen Stats had Gary for one QB pressure.

Gary’s overall 68.2 grade from Pro Football Focus ranks 53rd out of 115 graded edge rushers.

Out of 118 qualified edge defenders in 2025, Gary ranks 41st in Pro Football Focus’ pass rush productivity metric and 60th in its pass rush win rate. His 68.2 overall grade ranks 53rd.

Gary has two years left on his existing deal and is set to count $28.02 million against the salary cap in 2026, including an $18 million base salary. The Packers could restructure his deal — especially with Parsons’ availability in question to start the season — or simply move on from him and save roughly $11 million in salary-cap space.

For his part, Gary insisted in the wake of Parsons’ injury that he had “been doing a great job of being effective” to that point in the season.

“I know if I keep playing at a high level, keep playing how I’m playing, the plays are going to come and it’s going to be right what the team needs,” he said.

But in early August, three weeks before general manager Brian Gutekunst sent the team’s 2026 and 2027 first-round draft picks and three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark to the Dallas Cowboys to acquire Parsons, Gary acknowledged that he needed to elevate his game.

Without Parsons again, the Packers need him to live up to what he said then. 

“I’ve been making plays. I’ve been dominant. But of course you know me, I’m never satisfied. So my play has to pick up,” Gary said at the time. “I’m always hard on myself.

“[It’s about] just being consistent on the first [down] all the way to the fourth down — [and] being hell to reckon with.”

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