Jan. 14, 2026, 7:06 a.m. CT
Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst has a decision to make on the fifth-year option of Lukas Van Ness this offseason, as the 2023 first-round pick ends his third season in the NFL.
If Green Bay elects to exercise LVN’s option, it will add an extra year to his contract, keeping him tied to the Packers through the 2027 season for a guaranteed salary of a projected $15 million. If they decline the option, he will be set to hit free agency a year from now.
Despite only playing 10 games in 2025 due to injury, Van Ness had a career year in terms of his underlying numbers and made legitimate progress from year two to year three.
He ended the year ranked 22nd out of 124 edge defenders in pass rush win rate and fourth in stop rate against the run. Stops are classified as tackles resulting in a failure for the offense.
Looking at the first-round picks at his position since 2018, Van Ness has much more in common with the players who did have their fifth-year option picked up than the ones who didn’t.
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The 17 edge rushers who had their option exercised averaged a pass rush win rate of 16.19% and a pass rush productivity (PRP) score of 8.34 (higher is better) in their third season, and throughout their first three years averaged a sack every 50.63 pass rush snaps.
This uses PFF’s sack numbers, which count half sacks as full sacks (because half sacks don’t make sense).
Van Ness had a pass rush win rate of 16.2% this season, a PRP score of 9 and has averaged a sack every 51.69 pass rush snaps in his first three years in the league. He is right in line with the benchmarks set by previous draft picks at his position.
The best pass rush win rate in year three by a player who did not have their option exercised since 2018 was Chase Young with 11.7%, the best PRP was Clelin Ferrell’s 7.8 and the lowest pass rush snaps per sack average was Zaven Collins with 71.5. Van Ness is well clear of these numbers.
An argument against picking up the option for Van Ness would be that he has not been a full time starter, but that is not unusual for rookie contract players in Green Bay, even first-rounders, and he almost certainly will be the starting edge rusher opposite Micah Parsons in 2026.
He went from playing around 23 snaps per game as a rookie, to 25 in year two, to 31 in 2025, and if you remove the game he left with injury against the Bengals, the game he tried to play against the Vikings but aggravated that injury, his snaps per game goes up to 35.
Van Ness was out-snapping and outperforming Rashan Gary by the end of the season, and although Kingsley Enagbare was still playing more than him, there is a good chance neither Gary nor Enagbare are on the team next year.
That clears the path for Van Ness to start, and he has earned it, putting up better down to down statistics than any non-Parsons defensive end on the team.
He would be a bit of an outlier for a fifth-year option in terms of sack total – Van Ness only has 13 in three years using PFF’s numbers – with only Marcus Davenport in New Orleans having their option picked up after that little sack production since 2018.
The average edge rusher who had their option exercised had 24.82 sacks, but again, this is where simply being on the field more often comes into play.
George Karlaftis of the Chiefs had 35 sacks in his first three years, but is only marginally better than Van Ness in pass rush snaps per sack at 50.71.
In terms of the cost of his option, there are currently 24 pass rushers making $16 million or more in AAV, so paying Van Ness $15 million in 2027, when his option year would take place, is not exorbitant, especially given he was PFF’s 27th highest graded edge defender overall in 2025.
Van Ness does not turn 25 years old until July and is trending up. It may raise some eyebrows when Green Bay picks up his fifth-year option, as they very likely will, as he has not done enough to earn much national recognition yet, but it will probably be an easy decision for Gutekunst.