Lukas Van Ness’ foot injury might cost him more time for the Green Bay Packers

Green Bay Packers defensive end Lukas Van Ness injured his foot on a sack against the Cincinnati Bengals back in Week 6. From Week 7 through Week 11, Van Ness was unable to suit up for the Packers due to the injury, but he returned to the field in Green Bay’s 23-6 win over the Minnesota Vikings. Unfortunately, though, he was only able to play six total snaps, all on defense, throughout that matchup.

Last week, against the Detroit Lions, the Packers again made Van Ness inactive for the game. Many speculated that his being ruled out could have been because of the short week that Green Bay faced to play a Thanksgiving game, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

According to ESPN’s Rob Demovsky, Van Ness was seen wearing a walking boot on Monday. When the media asked Van Ness about his situation, here’s what he said:

“It just wasn’t exactly where I wanted it to be. Was hoping to get back on the field and return to play, played a limited amount of snaps and it didn’t feel quite right yet, so just back on the rehab plan and hoping I can turn the corner shortly. But until then, just rehab, work with the training staff and coaches and hope I can get healthy soon.”

Notably, this news came around the same time that the Packers officially announced that they had activated the practice windows for both defensive end Brenton Cox Jr. and defensive end Collin Oliver. Green Bay already has six defensive ends on the 53-man roster, beyond Van Ness, so there doesn’t seem to be much of a need for either Cox or Oliver at the moment on the active roster.

Where a potential short-term loss of Van Ness might hurt the most is actually at defensive tackle, as Van Ness played a lot of reps at the position in the team’s “Cheetah” packages with three defensive ends on the field at the same time. After Devonte Wyatt, the team’s starting three-technique defensive tackle, was lost for the year with an ankle injury, the Packers are left with a four-man rotation, though undrafted rookie Nazir Stackhouse averages less than 10 snaps a game.

Green Bay seems to want to keep Stackhouse’s snaps low in this “redshirt” year. The 327-pound nose tackle is not being used in a situational role right now, like in short yardage or goal line looks exclusively, so it really does just seem like they want him to bank a couple of reps at the position going into 2026. We’ll see if that plan can hold, following the injuries of Van Ness and Wyatt.

Either way, expect to see a lot more Karl Brooks (who only played four snaps due to injury last week), Colby Wooden and Warren Brinson moving forward.

On special teams, Van Ness has been a consistent contributor throughout his NFL career. To make up for Van Ness missing reps, the Packers have been using a 53-man roster spot on Arron Mosby, a hybrid defensive end-linebacker who almost exclusively plays special teams.