The 2021 NFL Draft is a class that Green Bay Packers fans want to forget. While there was some value added that year, with T.J. Slaton being taken 173rd overall and Isaiah McDuffie going 220th, the fact that the team took Josh Myers and Amari Rodgers in the top 100 selections of that draft outweighs the positives. A player that the Packers took and who you might have forgotten about, though, is offensive lineman Cole Van Lanen.
Van Lanen was picked 214th overall (a sixth-round selection) out of Wisconsin
that year. He spent all of his rookie year on the Packers’ practice squad, but he did get on the field for one snap in 2021 as a gameday elevation.
The next summer, the Packers sent Van Lanen to the Jacksonville Jaguars for a 2023 seventh-round pick, a selection that Green Bay eventually used on safety Anthony Johnson Jr., who played 12 games and made four starts with the 2023 Packers before Johnson was waiver claimed by the New York Giants at the cutdown deadline in 2024.
Van Lanen only started three games for the Jaguars on his rookie deal, all in the final year of his deal in 2024, but was re-signed to the team in 2025 on a one-year, $3.4 million contract. This year, though, Van Lanen finally had a major breakout as a 27-year-old fifth-year lineman.
He’s displaced Walker Little, a 2021 second-round pick, as the team’s starting left tackle and has recorded nine starts in 2025. On Friday night, ESPN’s Adam Schefter broke the news that Van Lanen and the Jaguars reached an agreement on a three-year, $51 million extension that can rise up to $55.5 million ($18.5 million per) with incentives.
Generally, the thought around the league is that the price of full-time starting tackles is around $20 million, following the deal that Dan Moore Jr. received from the Tennessee Titans this offseason, despite the fact that he led the NFL in sacks allowed in 2024. This is why Packers left tackle Rasheed Walker will probably end up netting the team a 2027 fourth-round compensatory pick once he hits free agency this offseason.
Van Lanen, who has started just 12 games in five seasons, falls just a little shy of that $20 million per year mark. Welcome to the NFL in 2025. As a reminder, Zach Tom signed a $22 million per year extension this offseason, which is looking better by the day.
