After suffering a season-ending ankle injury last season, the future for former Green Bay Packers first-round pick Devonte Wyatt was in some doubt as he headed into his final year under contract. However, prior to training camp even opening this summer, the Packers and Wyatt agreed on a three-year $57M contract that would keep him in Green Bay for the foreseeable future. The contract included a $20M signing bonus and $22M in true guarantees, but with the contract structure including a 2027 roster
bonus, it functionally looks more like about $31M in functional guarantees before his contract is potentially on the chopping block after the 2027 season.
At the time, the Wyatt contract was considered a pretty good deal. It came in materially lower in guarantees than John Franklin-Myers’ deal, despite Wyatt being less of a unique player. Rather than being the size of a classic 4-3 defensive end, Wyatt is built like a classic three-tech. While availability has been a rolling problem for Wyatt, when he’s been on the field, he was always disruptive, even if the actual sack production lagged the pressure numbers. His first three seasons saw pressure rates north of 9% in each of them, and last season, as his snap load increased prior to injury, still maintained a solid 20th ranking amongst defensive tackles in pressure rate, even as the rate itself fell to 7.7%.
In 2026, the pressure rate decline has continued, with it now falling to a paltry 5.4%. The pressure rate decline is particularly problematic as Wyatt has never been a good run defender. Quantifying run defense is always difficult as even something like “stops” can be misleading since good run defense at defensive tackle is often about occupying the correct space within the overall context of the front and not letting holes open up. PFF grades continue to be less-and-less useful as the company has moved in a… different… direction, but his grades have been sub-standard in this department for years. His run defense grades, aside from his rookie season in more limited snaps, have been 52 or worse in each of the past four seasons. In 2026, he’s giving the Packers next-to-nothing.
Also, goodness Chris McClellan… (I don’t think the graders ever know what they’re looking at with nose tackles, to be honest). One very nice surprise on this chart is Karl Brooks, who is having a career year despite playing more snaps than ever. While Wyatt is only playing just under half of the defensive snaps, Karl Brooks, in addition to being a special teams ironman, is playing over 60% of the defensive snaps. His pressure rate is solid, but his run stop rate is very high, rating as one of the best in football, despite him being a bit of an outlier in terms of the type of defensive tackle you would expect to pop in the run game. Brooks’ contract-year breakout has helped mask some of the shortcomings of Wyatt, but they became very glaring on Sunday when the Packers front was struggling mightily to create pressure as the Lions basically forced Lukas Van Ness out of the pass rush with their formation alignments. This left the Packers without their best pass rusher on most plays, and Wyatt’s disastrous 2026 continued as he didn’t register a single pressure, his second consecutive game doing so.
With Javon Hargrave out for the year and likely a cut candidate this off-season, and Karl Brooks looking more-and-more likely to earn a good contract elsewhere this spring, the Packers desperately need a return of 2025 Devonte Wyatt sooner rather than later. If not for 2026, then at least for 2027 when perhaps maybe, just maybe, they won’t be decimated by apocalyptic injury luck for yet another year.
