I’ve been keeping a close eye on Rashan Gary’s performance all year because, despite recording a few cleanup sacks early in the season, his rate of generating actual pressure throughout has been abysmal. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at some numbers for the Green Bay Packers pass rushers.
Let’s start with this chart. The x-axis measures the number of pass-rushing attempts a player makes in edge alignment during the 2025 season (per NFL Pro). The Y-axis is the number of quick pressures (pressures generated in three seconds or less, as defined by NFL Pro).
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Clearly, Gary stood out. No player in the league has more opportunities to rush the passer while having less impact on the quarterback within three seconds of the snap.
Why are three seconds important? First, with the exception of the Kansas City Chiefs, every NFL team in the league has an average shot time under 3 seconds. So, in general, this is how fast you can expect the ball to go out of bounds in this league, unless the quarterback loses his rhythm (probably due to quick pressure!)
I looked at NFL Pro numbers (dating back to the 2018 season) to try to answer this question: Who else will do less and have more opportunities than Rashan Gary in 2025? The answer is yes, but almost no.
Since 2018, 206 edge defenders have played at least 377 snaps as a pass rusher in a single season like Gary. Among these players, there are an average of 24 quick pressures per season. By 2025, Gary will only have 6. The group’s average rapid pressure rate was 5.5%. Gary’s approval rating is 1.6%.
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As a result, Gary was playing less than one-third of the efficiency of the players who typically control his playing time levels, which may be one of the reasons why he ended up getting outplayed by Lucas Van Ness and Kingsley Nnagbal in Week 17.
Of those 206 edge defenders, only two had fewer than six rushing pressures in a year:
After the 2021 season, Reed made just four more starts in his NFL career, spending the next two years with three teams. He has been out of the league the past two seasons.
From a snap pressure percentage perspective, there were only four seasons in this group (206 players, mind you) that were worse than Gary’s 1.6% rate:
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After four years with the Minnesota Vikings, DJ Wonnum signed a two-year, $12.5 million ($6.25 million annual salary) contract with the Carolina Panthers, where he had six sacks in 21 starts. Those numbers are well below Gary’s $24 million annual average and his $28 million cap hit in 2026.
At one point (especially in 2022), Gary was a great pass rusher. Those days are over now.
Even using an eight-year window, it’s difficult to find many comparisons to Gary’s performance this season. Beyond that, Jordan, Reed and Wannum certainly don’t get a chance to play with Micah Parsons, one of the most efficient pass rushers in the league this year (perhaps second only to Myles Garrett).
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Last night’s game against the Ravens saw Gary play the third defensive end role for the first time since Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith were the team’s starters, and it may be the last time we see Gary in green and gold at Lambeau Field.
By 2026, Gary’s salary will be $18 million, which is simply not worth his production cost. The Packers can immediately save $11 million in cap space by releasing Gary before June 1, which could be an option Green Bay takes in the offseason.
The Packers selected Gary with the 12th overall pick, the highest pick the team had taken since 2009, with the hope that he would be a future pass rusher. Over the course of several years, Gary became one of the best bull rushers in the league. However, just as he was becoming a star, his production began to decline, possibly due to a torn ACL in 2022. Unfortunately for Green Bay, this ties in closely with the timing of Gary’s mid-season extension in 2023.
Ultimately, it’s hard to make the case that Gary’s selection and extension were a positive for the team, but for a while, his draft and development plans did look like they were working.
