GREEN BAY — While All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons and emerging star tight end Tucker Kraft’s season-ending knee injuries were undeniably major reasons for the Green Bay Packers’ late-season collapse, their torn anterior cruciate ligaments weren’t the only catastrophic injuries that factored into the team’s downfall.

The team’s best offensive lineman, right tackle Zach Tom, going down in the same game as Parsons — a Dec. 14 loss to the Denver Broncos — with what turned out to be a partially torn patellar tendon certainly didn’t help matters.

Tom, who missed the Packers’ final five games (including their season-ending NFC first-round playoff loss to the rival Chicago Bears) with the injury, said after the loss to the Bears that he wasn’t sure if he would undergo surgery for the injury, but general manager Brian Gutekunst confirmed Tuesday during his annual pre-draft Q&A session with reporters that Tom did indeed have the surgery.

Tom said in January that he’d been told it would be a six-month recovery, meaning he won’t be able to do much during organized team activity practices next month and won’t be fully cleared for the start of training camp in late July.

Gutekunst suggested Tuesday that Tom is on track in his recovery.

“He’s doing well,” Gutekunst said. “Whenever you lose guys like Zach Tom, you have to adjust — and I thought we did a nice job doing that. But fortunate for him, he’ll be ready to roll as we get going. I’ll give him a lot of credit, man. He fought his tail off to try to finish it out and I’m very appreciative of that.”

On the comeback trail | Gutekunst said he was unsure of whether Parsons would be doing his offseason rehabilitation work in Green Bay moving forward after primarily rehabbing in Dallas after his post-season surgery.

In fact, Gutekunst was so up to his eyeballs in draft preparation that he said he wasn’t even sure if Parsons reported with the rest of the players for Monday’s first day of the offseason program.

“I’ve been in the cave. So the guys that got in yesterday, I couldn’t even tell you who’s here or who’s not,” Gutekunst admitted. “Obviously, it’s all voluntary. I haven’t seen him yet; it doesn’t mean he’s not here. To be honest with you, I think I’ve seen about four players since they got in.”

Van Ness awaits fifth-year fate | Speaking of players Gutekunst had not yet spoken with, the GM said the team is “working through” what they plan to do with 2023 first-round pick Lukas Van Ness and whether they will pick up the fifth-year option on the edge rusher’s rookie contract.

The Packers have until May 1 to decide whether to exercise it or decline it. If they decline it, Van Ness will be an unrestricted free agent after the season.

Future considerations | Gutekunst intimated that part of the reason the team was willing to trade wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks to the Philadelphia Eagles — beyond getting a fifth-round pick for him in next week’s draft and a sixth-rounder in 2027 — was that with fellow wide receivers Christian Watson and Jayden Reed also heading into the final years of their contracts, Wicks’ long-term future in Green Bay was cloudy.

“[We’re] excited about the opportunities some of these guys are going to get,” Gutekunst said. “It’s always tough to move off of a player that you feel is as good as Dontayvion was for us. I think he’s got a really bright career ahead of him.

“The situation we were in with the amount of players that we had in that room, what we’re probably going to do in the future, him being in the last year of his contract, it just made a little bit of sense.

“We weren’t sure exactly how [he] was going to fit into our future plans, [so] it just made a lot of sense. I do think it was good for us, and I think it’s going to be good for Dontayvion, too, because he’ll see his opportunities increase there.”

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