TEMPE, Ariz. — Rashan Gary hears you, Packers fans. He was disappointed in last season, too.
Green Bay suffered an early exit in the postseason after going into 2024 with so much momentum. The Packers outperformed expectations in Jordan Love’s first year under center in 2023, making it to the divisional round when many thought they wouldn’t make a playoff appearance at all.
Last season was a bit of a regression due to myriad factors. Love was in and out of the lineup with multiple injuries throughout the season. His receivers were, too. And the defense underwent a schematic overhaul after the firing of Ed Donatell and hiring of Jeff Hafley.
That’s why, in the middle of July when he’s supposed to be on vacation with the rest of the NFL, Gary’s sweating in 115-degree heat on Arizona State’s campus with 60 other pass rushers from around the league at BT Jordan’s Pass Rush Retreat.
“This is really just to lock in mentally, fine-tune my craft because after this, I think we have, like, a week, maybe a week and a half before we have to go back to camp,” Gary told me. “It’s always good to compete, you feel me? To learn from different rushers, top guys in the league.”
It’s become an annual thing for Gary and Jordan. The event initially started as a nose tackle retreat in Texas, but Gary showed up anyway. His example has turned it into the resource it is, and it’s part of why players who are supposed to be relaxing on a beach somewhere are instead putting in work for 12-to-14 hours for three days straight in the Valley of the Sun.
[Read more: ‘It’s A Real Brotherhood’: At Pass Rush Retreat, Top D-Linemen Put Egos Aside]
It’s important to Gary not only because he’s become a de facto face of the retreat, but because he wants to be the face of Green Bay’s pass rush, a unit that did not play up to its standard last season. The Packers had the 12th-best sack rate, with Gary accounting for 7.5 of the team’s 45 sacks (tied for eighth-best in the league). But they finished in the bottom 15 in pressure percentage, and their advanced metrics aren’t much better, either. The Packers only recorded a pressure with four or fewer rushers 29.5% of the time, which was bottom-12 league-wide.
On a team that is supposed to be a perennial threat in the NFC North, that doesn’t cut it, especially for Gary himself.
“I know my game,” Gary said as he was sitting in ASU football’s practice bubble following a morning of pass rush drills. “I know the moves I like to do. I know how people want to see me. I know how people think of me. So just going in there and fine-tuning different things to add to the rush, adding a couple of new moves in my toolbox, just working on my game.”
The work in Arizona is a continuation of the switch from a 3-4 base defense, which Green Bay had been in since 2008, into a 4-3 with the arrival of defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley. Last season was a learning year, and though the Packers had the fifth-best defense by counting metrics (yards per game and per play allowed), a lot of it was masked by a coverage unit that recorded the fourth-most takeaways in the NFL last year. The defense succeeded in Hafley’s first year, but it was the pass rush that was still left lacking.
Rashan Gary didn’t have a problem sacking Caleb Williams last season, but the Packers’ November win over the Bears was their only victory against a division rival last season. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
And that wasn’t lost on Gary.
“Ever since we left OTAs, I’ve just been on the mission,” he said in our conversation. “Because I’m more comfortable in the system and understand what the system asks of me. That’s on everybody on the whole defense. Everybody’s more confident. Everybody knows what to do. Everybody knows where everybody’s supposed to be. So it’s going to be schemed up to be a great year. We just got to handle it week in and week out, and go want to know every week.
“But what to expect from the Packers? Man, it’s a four-quarter game.”
Training camp is now fully underway. Early reports have an aggressive showing from the defense, but offensive success, as well. The pads didn’t come until Monday, though. The unit everyone is watching defensively hasn’t had the opportunity to showcase their increased comfortability, nor their increased motivation.
In his seventh year, Gary acutely understands the tradition he’s a part of in Green Bay. One of the league’s founding franchises, the Packers hold onto tradition unlike almost any other team. There is an expectation and a standard that was set long before Gary’s arrival.
“You want to really go through the history and look at what Green Bay been doing [but now] three bad seasons in the division — that’s not our standard. So we’re going to pick it up. Get better. But what you expect from us is to make the playoffs go as far as we can. Of course, the goal is gonna be the NFC Championship and then the Super Bowl — bring back home the Lombardi Trophy.”
Carmen Vitali is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. Carmen had previous stops with The Draft Network and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. She spent six seasons with the Bucs, including 2020, which added the title of Super Bowl Champion (and boat-parade participant) to her résumé. You can follow Carmen on Twitter at @CarmieV.
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