Lukas Van Ness did not make the kind of progress the Green Bay Packers will have hoped for in his second season, and he is yet to become a difference maker as a pro.

The former first round pick dealt with a broken thumb for a good portion of 2024, wearing a cast until around Wek 11, and he admitted that impacted his play.

Here’s what the numbers say about Van Ness through two seasons in the NFL:

Strengths

It will not be a surprise to many Packers fans that there are very few areas Van Ness has truly excelled so far.

Van Ness has shown a knack for getting ball carriers to the ground in his two years as a pro, ranking in the 72nd percentile for tackles per snap among qualified NFL edge rushers, with 46 tackles and 15 assisted tackles since his rookie year.

He also ranks in the 66th percentile for stop rate, which are tackles which result in a failure for the offense. Van Ness has 38 stops in his two years in the league.

It is worth noting Van Ness ranks in the 59th percentile in sacks per opportunity (SK/OPP) since 2023, with 10 since 2023 using PFF’s tracking, which counts half sacks as full ones.

Weaknesses

The first noticeable area for improvement with Van Ness is simply getting on the field more. Since 2023, he ranks in just the 31st percentile in snaps per game versus the run and the 16th percentile against the pass.

With the Packers clearing the path to him winning the starting spot across from Rashan Gary, those numbers should tick up in 2025, but he will need to improve his play in plenty of areas to start providing some value to Green Bay’s defense.

Van Ness has has not had much impact as a pass rusher, ranking in the 30th percentile or lower in hurries per opportunity (HUR/OPP), pass rush win rate (WIN %) and PFF’s pass rush productivity (PRP) metric with or without the true pass sets qualifier, as well as QB hits (HIT/OPP) and SK/OPP vs true pass sets.

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The only real sign of Van Ness making strides as a pass rusher in year two is his increased WIN %, which went from 6.9% to 9.5%, or compared to his NFL peers, the 19th to the 34th percentile, which is still well below average, but is heading in the right direction at least.

Van Ness’s strong numbers in terms of stops are mostly due to this past season, when he ranked in the 79th percentile, compared to the 53rd in 2023.

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Unfortunately, there were several statistical areas in which Van Ness regressed in year two. He was a less threatening pass rusher on the whole, with his rankings in HIT/OPP declining, whether against true pass sets or not, while he also fared worse in PRP and SK/OPP.

The Packers will be hoping the thumb injury was the primary cause of his pedestrian play versus the pass, and it also seemed to impact his tackling, as he went from the 68th percentile in missed tackle rate against the run in 2023 to the 42nd percentile in 2024.

He also committed an alarming number of penalties last season, especially for someone who was not a starter. Van Ness ranked in just the 6th percentile in penalties per snap compared to the 62nd as a rookie. He had five penalties in 2024 after being flagged just once the previous year.

The story is far from written yet for Van Ness, who has only just turned 24, and has all the physical attributes to be a strong EDGE defender in the NFL, but it is difficult to call his first two years anything other than a disappointment.

We will never know how much the thumb injury truly hampered him, and what his sophomore season could have looked like if he was healthy, but regardless, Van Ness needs to take a massive leap in year three to make Green Bay right for drafting him 13th overall in 2023.

He has a clear path to the starting job bookending Rashan Gary, and he must become at least a league average number two rusher this season. The Packers are counting on him heavily.