The Green Bay Packers pushed their chips in ahead of the 2025 season, trading for edge rusher Micah Parsons and immediately looking like Super Bowl contenders.
Their season would end early, both because of Parsons’ season-ending ACL tear and the defense’s underwhelming performance without its best player. That demands change, and as Green Bay stares down an important offseason, the defensive line has come into focus.
Green Bay Packers Could Cut Star Defensive Lineman
Between Parsons’ record-breaking contract and quarterback Jordan Love’s big deal, the Packers must balance responsible spending with Super Bowl aspirations.
Nowhere is that more important than at edge rusher, where Rashan Gary has caught the ire of the fanbase. Despite a Pro Bowl nomination in 2024, Gary has fallen short of expectations in three consecutive years, making him a cut candidate this offseason.
The Athletic insider Matt Schneidman broke down why releasing Gary might be an addition by subtraction.
“I would be surprised if Gary is on the team next season,” Schneidman wrote. “I’ll put it like that. According to OTC, his cap number of approximately $28 million is the second highest on the team behind quarterback Jordan Love. Gary is making too much money to be producing as little as he did in the second half of last season.”
By PFSN’s NFL EDGE Impact Metric, Gary ranked 41st in 2025. In 2023 and 2024, he ranked 39th and 32nd, respectively. All three of those seasons earned C+ grades, playable, but far short of the expectations from his four-year, $96 million contract.
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Likewise, Gary has logged 7.5 sacks in each of the last two seasons. He’s never had a double-digit sack campaign, failing to leap into the pantheon of elite pass rushers, even after adding a titan like Parsons to make life easier.
“Releasing him would free up about $11 million in cap space for a team that needs more space,” Schneidman continued. “The Packers might first ask Gary to take a pay cut, but he’s well within his rights to tell them to kick rocks and try to sign a better deal elsewhere.
“Might Micah Parsons’ injury give the Packers pause about releasing Gary? Maybe, but methinks they can get by for a couple of games with Lukas Van Ness, Kingsley Enagbare (assuming they re-sign him), Barryn Sorrell and Collin Oliver until Parsons returns within the season’s first month.”
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Parsons (PFSN’s fourth-ranked edge rusher) might be enough to build an adequate pass rush by himself. If Gary’s run defense isn’t compensating for mediocre results as a pass rusher, Green Bay could be inclined to cut bait.
Van Ness would be the immediate in-house replacement, offering a similar size and flashes of pass-rushing potential. By PFSN’s NFL EDGE Impact, Van Ness (25th) was even better than Gary, albeit in a smaller sample size.
The Packers’ in-house replacements are viable, and cap flexibility is paramount in a competitive window. As Gary underperforms at a premium position, he has fallen under the magnifying glass, and there’s reason to believe that the next successful Packers team doesn’t include its 2019 first-round pick.
