\u201dSometimes, there is an ebb and flow with production with sacks. He was impactful towards the second half of the season,\u201d Gutekunst said. \u201cMaybe not as much as the first, but he was impactful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gutekunst later noted he expects Gary to be productive \u201cnext year,\u201d perhaps giving a clue about Gary\u2019s 2026 status.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be clear before we go any further. I don\u2019t expect Gutekunst to stand at the lectern and rag on his players. There are plenty of people capable of doing that (me, for instance) and there\u2019s no benefit to him getting up there and talking about what a disappointment Gary was and how he needs to be better and so on. Everybody already knows that.<\/p>\n
But with respect to the general manager\u2026Brian, we\u2019ve all got eyes, man. Rashan Gary was simply not an impactful player for the Packers down the stretch in 2025.<\/p>\n
Gary appeared in 17 games for the Packers last year, including the playoffs, so it\u2019s easy to split his season up into two halves. We\u2019ll even give him a one-game boost when we\u2019re breaking down his stats and break his season into two uneven chunks: the first eight games of the year and the last nine. Surely if Gary was an impactful player, his second-half stats should easily surpass the first, right?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not even close. I looked at seven different stats (and his playing time) to see if Gary showed any kind of improvement or impactful play at all in the second half of last season, and couldn\u2019t find any substantial impact at all. The seven stats were tackles, sacks (obviously), tackles for loss, quarterback hits, total pressures, and stops (a measure of how often a player prevents the offense from having a successful play (read more here<\/a>)).<\/p>\n Gary declined in five of the seven stats, only showing minimal improvement in total pressures (which you\u2019d expect with one more game in the sample) and pressure rate (showing he got pressures slightly more frequently on a per-snap basis).<\/p>\n But even that increase in his per-snap effectiveness should come with a grain of salt. Why? Because Gary was playing fewer snaps per game in the second half of the season. Over the final nine games of the year, Gary averaged just 38.7 snaps per game, down nearly five full snaps from the 43.5 he averaged during the first eight games of the season. It\u2019s easier to put up better per-snap stats when you\u2019re playing fewer snaps!<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the full statistical comparison between the first eight games and the last nine.<\/p>\n
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