It feels like Devonte Wyatt‘s injuries allowed the national media to forget how good he has been. Make no mistake, though. When he’s healthy, the Green Bay Packers defensive tackle is one of the NFL’s most disruptive interior pass rushers.
Wyatt was playing some of the best football of his career at the start of last season. He recorded 13 pressures over the first three games, including a dominant seven-pressure performance in Week 2.
That momentum came to an abrupt stop when he suffered an injury against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 4, forcing him to miss a month before returning against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 8.
The 2022 first-round pick recorded three pressures in his first game back. That’s more impressive when you consider Pittsburgh finished the 2025 season with a 71% pass-block win rate, the third-highest mark in the NFL. Much of that was a product of Aaron Rodgers consistently getting the ball out quickly, leaving pass rushers with little time to get home. Even so, Wyatt still found ways to generate pressure and disrupt the pocket.
Wyatt’s 2025 season was cut short after he suffered a broken fibula and torn ankle ligaments against the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving, limiting him to just 10 games. Even with the missed time, he remained productive as a pass rusher. He recorded 22 pressures on 222 pass-rushing snaps, averaging a pressure for every 10.1 pass-rush opportunities. That’s a good rate for a defensive tackle.
“You guys see the difference he makes when he got back out on the field. He’s a player you can’t replace,” Micah Parsons said on Thanksgiving. “It’s going to be challenging, but we’re going to have to really dial into our details, our fundamentals to try to replace someone that’s unreplaceable.”
Green Bay’s decision to hand him a three-year, $57 million extension says a lot about how the organization views him. Yes, there’s some risk involved, as the Packers are betting he’ll stay healthy, but they’re paying for the player he’s been whenever he’s been on the field.
At $19 million per year, Wyatt is currently tied for the 18th-highest annual salary among NFL defensive tackles, which makes the deal a reasonable investment for a player who has continued to trend upward.
The contract will likely give Green Bay flexibility after the first year, allowing the team to reassess the situation while Wyatt enters the next phase of his career with a chance to prove he can stay healthy and continue playing at a high level.
Whenever the conversation turns to Green Bay’s best players, names like Jordan Love, Micah Parsons, and Xavier McKinney will naturally be part of the discussion. They have well earned that recognition. However, Devonte Wyatt has a chance to add his name to that group if he stays healthy and continues playing at the level he has shown over the last two seasons.
