Packers Trade Pitch Flips Van Ness, Draft Haul for 6-Time All-Pro Edge Rusher

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Green Bay Packers edge rusher Lukas Van Ness.

The Green Bay Packers may be just one big move away from true Super Bowl contention.

Matt Schneidman of The Athletic on Tuesday, February 4, authored a trade proposal in which the Packers flip former 2023 first-round pick and pass rusher Lukas Van Ness along with the No. 23 overall pick in the first round of this year’s NFL draft and a conditional second-round selection in 2026 to the Cleveland Browns for defensive end Myles Garrett.

“Coach Matt LaFleur recently fired defensive line coach Jason Rebrovich after a season in which [GM Brian] Gutekunst said the pass rush was too inconsistent. A six-time All-Pro might help fix that,” Schneidman wrote. “The Packers don’t historically make moves like this. … But this case is different and worthy of sacrificing prized pick capital in pursuit of a title, and it would elevate one of the NFL’s best defenses even higher.”

Packers Probably Need to Make Bigger Offer to Browns to Land Myles Garrett

GettyCleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett.

That deal is favorable for Green Bay but may not be enough to entice Cleveland in what should be a healthy market for Garrett if the team does, in fact, decide to shop him around the league.

Browns general manager Andrew Berry said last week that he wouldn’t move on from Garrett for two first-round picks, which set a baseline for potential negotiations in the future. Schneidman wasn’t specific on the conditions of the second-round pick in his proposal, though the overall offer is probably a non-starter if the conditions don’t make it possible for the pick to turn into a 2026 first.

Garrett has earned All-Pro honors and Pro-Bowl honors six times each. He also won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award in 2023. The defensive end is the first pass rusher in league history to tally at least 14 sacks in four consecutive seasons and has amassed 102.5 total sacks over his eight-year career.

Lukas Van Ness Could Prove Hard Sell to Browns as Part of Myles Garrett Trade

GettyPass rusher Lukas Van Ness of the Green Bay Packers.

Beyond that, Van Ness may not entice Cleveland all that much as the third piece of the deal.

Schneidman described the edge rusher as a player “with plenty of potential who has yet to break out.” That’s putting it kindly as Van Ness has been a pass-rush specialist during his first two seasons, starting zero games and playing less than 40% of the defensive snaps in each of those two years. He has tallied just 7 total sacks across 34 appearances.

Van Ness is on a rookie deal, though as a first-rounder he will earn more than $17 million over the life of that contract. There is a fifth-year team option on his deal that would allow Cleveland to retain Van Ness for a reasonable price in 2027, however the organization would need to make a call on that after next season.

Accepting a player with potential, though one who hasn’t lived up to it yet, is a hard sell when he’s expensive relative to his draft peers and there is minimal runway before a bigger financial call must be made.

As such, the Packers would probably need to up the offer from where Schneidman set it to have a real shot at Garrett, for whom The Athletic concocted 11 hypothetical trades to 11 different franchises Tuesday — illustrating the type of demand there is for a player of Garrett’s caliber and his position around the NFL.