The 2025 season is 100 days away. The Packers are entering the third year of the Jordan Love era, and it may be the most meaningful one of the three. The team has exceeded expectations given the change at QB and the overall age of the roster, but now it’s time for the team to start making a serious attempt at contending.
If we’ve learned anything about the NFL over the past decade is that the right coach, the right player or even the right schedule can put a team over the top very quickly. So who on Green Bay’s 2025 squad are the most important in making that happen?
#1 Jordan Love
This is not a revolutionary thought. Nobody is more important to the Packers success in 2025 than the quarterback. Love overall had a similar season in his second year as he did his first. High highs and low lows. It’s impossible to separate his second season however from the injuries he carried and the inconsistent play he got from a young wr group. This doesn’t mean he’s without blame however – he needs to be more consistent in his decision making, foot work and ball placement. Additionally, he needs to be more willing to scramble this year. Love was one of the worst scramblers in football last year (and you can blame some of that on injury) but he needs to be a bit more willing to pick up some yards with his feet if the pass isn’t there.
Love has shown flashes of top five quarterback play, if he can smooth things out in season three the sky is the limit for Green Bays offense.
#2 Rashan Gary
Another fairly obvious pick. For a team to win a Super Bowl, a team typically needs a quarterback, and at least one of the two following things: a top end pass rush, or a dominant pass catcher. We’ll address pass catcher in a little bit, but Gary is going to be the main reason Green Bay can have that pass rush they desperately need.
Like Love, Gary was a mixed bag last season. He had maybe his best year as a run defender, but getting after the quarterback was not nearly frequent enough. Part of this I believe can be attributed to the change in scheme. Moving from a 3-4 to a 4-3 is not a small thing, and it seemed clear there were points last season where Gary was doing too much thinking. You would hope with an additional season in the system that can get ironed out. It’s also worth noting that the team clearly believed that coaching was an issue, as they fired their defensive line coach after the season.
Regardless of the reasons, Green Bay needs more from Gary than they’ve gotten. Especially given the financial investment they’ve made. The team clearly believes they can get more because they invested very little into the pass rush this offseason.
#3 DeMarcus Covington
Building off the previous entry, Covington has a large task on his plate coming in as the Packers new defensive line coach. The Packers believe the issues with their pass rush not showing up last season were a coaching issue, not a personnel one. They may not have come out and said it, but when you see that they brought nothing outside of a 4th round pick to add to the defensive line, they clearly believe they have the right players.
Covington’s main task is going to be centered on getting the most out of a defensive line that just two years ago had a pass rush that was top ten in DVOA. To get back to that, Covington will need to get Rashan Gary back on track, and figure out how to best maximize Lukas Van Ness. If he can, this team can really start to make a Super Bowl push.
#4 Elgton Jenkins
This offseason the Packers were not subtle about what they believed their issues were. How they addressed wide receiver and defensive line got a lot of attention, but their moves on the offensive line were just as telling. Josh Myers was not good enough. The team thought so, and apparently the rest of the league agreed based on the deal he took in New York. Depth was an issue last season, particularly in the playoff loss. Green Bay remedied this by signing Aaron Banks to a big free agent deal, and drafting Anthony Belton with a high pick.
Most importantly however, they did not sign an obvious replacement for Myers. That’s were Jenkins comes in. Nobody on Green Bay has more versatility than Jenkins, who has played at four of the 5 spots on the line, and played well for the most part at all of them. Jenkins was a center in college, so there’s reason to believe he can step in and be a bigger upgrade to that spot vs the drop-off between him and Banks at LG.
The issue now is evidently buy in. Centers are traditional the lowest paid position on the offensive line, and Jenkins wants a contract adjustment to make up for the loss he might see when his next contract comes up. There’s also been a small offseason issue involving a strip club, but that seems to have been resolved.
If the team and Jenkins can get the situation resolved in a satisfying way, moving Jenkins to center, and getting former first round pick Jordan Morgan back healthy could have Green Bay’s line in much better shape than last year.
#5 Dontayvion Wicks
Packers fans came into the 2024 season with high hopes for the wide receiver group. Watson, Doubs, Wicks and Reed all had shown real flashes the year prior and the hope was that one or even two of those 4 could take a big step in 2024. Unfortunately it mostly went the other way. Watson seemed to resolve his hamstring issues, but still wasn’t as consistent as you’d like and then ended the season with a devastating ACL injury. Doubs suffered multiple concussions and was also given a suspension for missing practices reportedly over unhappiness with his targets.
Reed and Wicks are very different players but both suffered from maybe the worst issue a receiver can have. Neither could hold unto the ball. So why is Wicks the guy on this list? The biggest problem Green Bay had last year was separation. Doubs and Reed just weren’t able to make it, Watson will likely miss a huge portion of the upcoming season which leaves Wicks.
Wicks is really good at getting open. He’s big, he runs routes well and is fast enough to get away from his cover guy. He just needs to make the catch. He does remind fans a bit of how Davante Adams career began, and maybe he can follow in those footsteps. If he doesn’t step up in a big way this season however I wouldn’t anticipate him being a Packer much longer given the additions the Packers made in the draft.
Honorable Mentions
Matthew Golden – The same things that applied to Wicks apply to Golden. Green Bay would love Golden to come and provide a similar effect that Christian Watson had on the offense, use his speed to open things up underneath.
Edgerrin Cooper – While injuries slowed him down at the start of the season, you could argue that Cooper was maybe the second best player on the defense by the end of the season. If he takes another step this year he could take the defense to another level
Jaire Alexander – I’m sick of updates about updates about how a resolution may or may not be coming. If Alexander is back in the team this season and can stay on the field, it would be massive.
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