The Packers have a decision to make on the fifth-year option on the contract of defensive lineman Lukas Van Ness. Do they or don’t they?
The Packers face a May 1 deadline to exercise the option for 2027, which would guarantee him a projected $15.381 million.
The 13th overall pick in 2023 has 8.5 sacks, 23 quarterback hits and 84 tackles in 43 games in three seasons. He has made only two starts and played only nine games in 2025 due to a foot injury.
“It’s about what we think he’s going to do in the future, not what he’s done in the past,” Gutekunst said Tuesday, via Bill Huber of Sports Illustrated. “So, that’s kind of how we look at things. We did that with Devonte [Wyatt] last year. If that’s the decision we decide to do, I won’t have a problem with that at all.”
Van Ness has never played more than 40 percent of the snaps in a season despite playing all 17 games his first two seasons. They need better production from him this season in what would be a contract year if the Packers decline the fifth-year option.
“I would’ve liked to get those games back that he missed this past year because he was playing at such a high level for us,” Gutekunst said. “Anytime you miss those kind of games in a year, it kind of stunts you a little bit.
“He was playing very well for us. It’s always tough to get back to that level when you have that pause in the season. No, we feel really good about him, where he’s headed, what he’s done for us so far and what he’ll do for us in the future.”
The Scouting Combine is mostly for players who are draft eligible, but this year at least one quarterback who has already been on an NFL roster will have scouts checking him out in Indianapolis.
Free agent quarterback Taylor Elgersma, who spent three months on the Packers’ 90-player roster last summer, was invited to throw at the Combine, according to Tom Pelissero of NFL Network.
Elgersma will be there primarily to throw in drills to help the scouts evaluate the wide receivers, tight ends, running backs and defensive backs who are eligible for the 2026 NFL draft. But he hopes that if he throws the ball well, he’ll catch the eye of an NFL team that will bring him to camp this year.
Elgersma went undrafted by the NFL after being named first-team All-Canadian following his final season at Laurier University in Ontario. He’s been drafted by both the Canadian Football League and the United Football League, but he’ll keep trying to make it to the NFL.
The 6-foot-5, 227-pound Elgersma completed 16 of 23 passes for 166 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions while playing for the Packers in the preseason last year.
If you’re a Packers owner, they can’t take away your stock certificate. They can, however, take away your season tickets.
The Packers have issued another warning to folks who own season tickets and sell them on the secondary market.
“Our Season Ticket Holders are central to Lambeau Field’s significant homefield advantage and gameday experience,” Packers vice president of sales and business development Craig Benzel said in an item posted on the team’s website. “We continue to emphasize the purpose of having season tickets, which is to attend games and contribute to that atmosphere. Simply put: Packers Season Ticket Holders who purchase their tickets with the sole intent of reselling them should not be Packers Season Ticket Holders.”
While the Packers have not applied a magic number that will lead to revocation of season tickets, the article states that “Season Ticket Holders who repeatedly resell their season tickets, whether on the secondary market or through ticket brokers (directly or indirectly), may have their renewal ability impacted without further warning.”
Citing a waiting list of more than 155,000, the Packers want as many seats as possible to be filled with Packers fans.
Each team controls its tickets. And while some franchises rely on fans of the visiting team to fill a stadium that would otherwise have empty seats, the Packers have more than enough fans to overload Lambeau Field with people wearing cheeseheads. For anyone who re-sells to someone who’d be more inclined to wear a cheese grater, the outcome eventually will be not great.
The 2025 offseason featured a vote on banning the tush push, but the proposal put forth by the Packers failed to get the 24 votes needed for the rule to be enacted.
The play continued to be featured by the Eagles and others during the season. The way things like false starts and forward progress were officiated continued to generate chatter, but defenses had some more success stopping the play than they had in the past and Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts said in November that it was “becoming tougher and tougher” to run the play after losing a fumble in a loss to the Bears.
That change may have also cooled plans to revive the debate about eliminating the play. Competition Committee co-chairman Rich McKay said on Sunday that he has not seen a proposal from any team similar to the one that fell short last year.
“There’s no team proposal that I’ve seen from it,” McKay said, via longtime NFL reporter Mark Maske. “So I wouldn’t envision it. But you never know.”
Further discussions on possible rule changes by the committee will take place this week and any proposals for the full league will be voted on at league meetings later in the offseason.
The Packers have hired Will Redmond as a college scout, the team announced Friday.
This is Redmond’s first NFL job.
He joins the Packers after two years as the General Manager at Auburn University.
He previously worked at LSU as the director of player personnel from 2021-23. While at LSU he was named Player Personnel Director of the Year for 2022 by FootballScoop.com.
Redmond also served as the director of player personnel at Middle Tennessee State University (2016-18) before he landed at the University of Kansas as the director of recruiting (2019-20).
He earned his undergraduate (2013) and graduate degrees (2015) from the University of Tennessee in sport management while working with the university’s athletic department in multiple capacities.
