Let’s hope Rashan Gary is saving up for the playoffs, because the end to the regular season featured very little from one of the Packers’ highest-paid players.
The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman notes that
Gary, who last recorded a sack on October 26, is in some lonely company at the moment.
That’s a pretty dire intersection of price and value, though it shouldn’t be particularly surprising to anyone who’s been following the Packers this year. Gary’s performance as a pass rusher has been plummeting over the past couple of seasons, especially when it comes to generating quick pressure. At this point in his career, Gary is pretty much only getting clean-up sacks, and those have been harder to come by with Micah Parsons out of the picture.
But even so, it’s hard not to be disappointed in Gary’s performance, especially since he started the season so strong. Clean-up sacks or not, Gary still took the opposing quarterback down 7.5 times in the Packers’ first seven games, equalling his output for the entire 2024 season and putting him just two sacks off his career high of 9.5 (2021). He and Parsons were firmly on pace to become the Packers’ first pair of 10-sack pass rushers since Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith did it in 2019.
Since then, though, it’s been two months of disappointment from Gary. In addition to Parsons, Devonte Wyatt, Quay Walker, Kingsley Enagbare, Isaiah McDuffie, Warren Brinson, Barryn Sorrell, Brenton Cox, and even Xavier McKinney have all recorded at least half a sack since Gary last did so.
In fairness to Gary, there are other ways to affect the opposing pass game outside of sacks — but Gary has been coming up short there, too. According to Pro Football Focus, Gary generated four or more pressures in a game just three times over his final nine appearances of 2025 (he didn’t play in Week 18). He did so five times in the Packers first seven games. His per game average for pressures dropped from 3.71 in the first seven games of the year to 3.1 over the final nine.
That’s really not the performance you’d hope for, especially after Gary’s bold “watch how the front play” proclamation in the wake of Micah Parson’s ACL injury. People have been watching, and there’s been very little to see.
That said, Gary’s generally been good in the playoffs. Gary has 4.5 sacks, five tackles for loss, and nine quarterback hits in eight career playoff games, including one sack against Jalen Hurts in the Packers Wildcard Round game last year. If you’re holding out hope for Gary, his postseason track record — however far in the past most of it may be — is about your only remaining lifeline. And if that’s where you find yourself, I can’t blame you. The alternative is a lot more discouraging.
