Jeff Hafley went from a fairly obscure college head coach to the Miami Dolphins’ new head coach in short order. Still, not even he could overcome the Green Bay Packers’ defensive shortcomings down the stretch in 2025.
Losing Micah Parsons hurt Green Bay’s season the same way losing my head might make me slightly less functional. Still, an understated part of the defense’s collapse was when interior defender Devonte Wyatt went out for the rest of the season on Thanksgiving.
After the Packers sent longtime, yet somehow still youthful, defensive tackle Kenny Clark to Dallas as part of the Parsons deal, Wyatt needed to step up as the anchor of the defensive line. He did so when available.
Now Green Bay’s most valuable interior defender is coming off multiple injuries and is up for an extension with the bill for his fifth-year option due. On the one hand, re-signing Devonte Wyatt is a no-brainer, but it won’t solve all of Green Bay’s interior defensive line problems.
Heading into free agency, defensive line is one of Green Bay’s clearest needs, along with cornerback and offensive line.
Beyond Wyatt, the young interior linemen struggled to stop the run and engage the passer. There wasn’t one particularly poor player on the line bringing the unit down; there was just an overall lack of definitive, proven talent. The current group is primarily made up of young, Day 3 picks.
New defensive line coordinator DeMarcus Covington upgraded the group compared to last season and was a coveted coach this offseason. Still, he could only do so much on the interior without Wyatt.
The line below from Packer Central’s Bill Huber in his interior defensive line grades stands out:
According to league data, the run defense was 0.06 yards per play better when Wyatt was on the field. The contrast was much starker in the pass game, where the defense was a whopping 1.10 yards per attempt better.
Winning the trenches is crucial, and the past two Super Bowl winners had physical, aggressive interiors.
Jeff Hafley didn’t blitz much, but new coordinator Jonathan Gannon likely will. As such, Green Bay needs to get him some talent.
Step 1 is re-signing Wyatt, who has proven incredibly valuable after a slow start to his Packers career. By offering the former first-round pick an extension, they keep their best interior player in the fold and create some much-needed cap space.
The Packers should, and probably will, make the move. Still, there’s cause for concern — namely, availability.
As AtoZ Sports’ Wendell Ferreira pointed out, Devonte Wyatt has never played more than 50% of defensive snaps in a season since joining the Packers in 2022. Early in his career, Wyatt was a more one-dimensional player, a disruptive interior pass-rusher but less adept at stopping the run. In the first three seasons of his career, Wyatt started just five games because of these limitations. Not ideal for a first-round draft pick.
With Clark gone, Wyatt did show he was ready for the bigger role, improving against the run and becoming better at finishing as a pass-rusher. Unfortunately, Wyatt is now coming off a major ankle injury. We don’t know how quickly he’ll return to being an impactful player, and at 28, he’ll be an older prospect looking for an extension.
Still, contract particulars are worth discussing, and Russ Ball can propose a fair deal that takes his availability into account.
However, the real issue is that Wyatt can’t be expected to play every snap, and the Packers must address the depth beyond him. Green Bay needs to get better against the run, which is already not Wyatt’s best skill set, and against the pass.
Green Bay also doesn’t have a first-round pick, and cornerback is just as big a need, even if Brian Gutekunst won’t admit it publicly. The Packers might not be able to get players ready to make an immediate impact, and they don’t like to draft for need in the first place.
Ideally, internal growth from Colby Wooden, Karl Brooks, Warren Brinson, and Nazir Stackhouse can elevate the unit, but that’s hard to bet on.
Realistically, the defensive line is the No. 1 area where Green Bay needs to look for outside help. The Packers have been loath to fill their team with mercenaries, although Brian Gutekunst said he’s not opposed to it.
“To me, anytime you have an opportunity to add a player that can help you, regardless of their age, very few years are we adding guys for one year,” Gutekunst said at his end-of-the-season press conference. “We’re usually looking for a more long-term solution. And certainly if you’re up there in age, that may not be the case. But we’ve certainly done that in the past, and we’ll do it again.”
Re-signing Devonte Wyatt will certainly help this group, but it can’t be the only solution. If there is one spot Gutekunst should go against his usual MO and copy his peers, it’s by bolstering the defensive line with veterans. Just elevating the floor alone would go a long way toward supporting the defensive line’s best in-house players, including Wyatt.
