Five Breakout Players Who Could Break Packers Out of Seventh-Seed Slump

The Green Bay Packers have made the playoffs each of the last three seasons. That’s the good news.

The bad news? They’ve made it as a seventh seed, which was not even a playoff seed until the 2020 season.

They’ve won one playoff game, Jordan Love’s playoff debut following his first season as the starter, a 48-32 romp against the Dallas Cowboys.

They’ve lost three straight playoff games since, blowing a fourth quarter lead in two of the three.

The question this year is not so much making the playoffs, but making their way out of the seventh seed, and back into the winner’s circle as NFC North champions. If they’re going to do that, they’ll need some help from the usual suspects. Jordan Love, Micah Parsons, and Tucker Kraft all have to play like stars.

They’ll also need some guys to break out.

Who are the five players that can break out to help them do that?

Lukas Van Ness

Van Ness has made lists similar to this for each of the last three years. This time, however, we mean it. Rashan Gary was traded this offseason, paving the way for Van Ness to make his first start of his pro career.

Beyond that, Van Ness is set to be the team’s top pass rusher for the first month, and maybe longer, with Micah Parsons set to miss the early portion of the regular season. Van Ness cannot simply afford to grow gradually into his own. He needs to be good.

The pass rushing group around him does not have a lot of skins on the wall in terms of NFL production.

Collin Oliver, Barryn Sorrell, Dani Dennis-Sutton and Brenton Cox could all find themselves starting in Week 1 across from Van Ness, or find themselves out of a job with a disastrous training camp.

Van Ness needs to lead the charge as a pass rusher early in the season, and become a viable running mate for Parsons when he does return. The pass rush was too reliant on Parsons a season ago, and expecting him to play the role of superman when he returns is likely putting too much on his plate.

There may not be a more important breakout candidate since Jordan Love was one in the fall of 2023.

Matthew Golden

The roar from the crowd was palpable when Mark Murphy announced Matthew Golden’s name as the Packers selection in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft at Lambeau Field. For the first time in more than 20 years, the Packers had taken a skill position player with their first round pick.

The results that followed did not lead to much of a roar, but rather a whimper. Golden was buried on the depth chart behind four established veterans and battled injuries through his first season.

As a result, opportunities were few and far between for the first round pick.

When he did get his opportunity, he did showcase his abilities, highlighted by an impressive catch-and-run in the postseason that led to his first career touchdown.

With the departure of Romeo Doubs in free agency and Dontayvion Wicks via trade, the runway is clear for Golden to take off in the offense. Christian Watson and Jayden Reed are likely still ahead of Golden in the pecking order, but Golden will have plenty of opportunities to replace the production left behind by Romeo Doubs.

The 2026 offense will not exactly mirror the 2025 offense, but Doubs and Wicks were targeted 131 times a year ago. Some of those targets will be distributed to other pass catchers, but Golden is the most likely beneficiary in terms of opportunity, and has the talent to develop into Green Bay’s top receiver.

Jordan Morgan

After two seasons of moving around the offensive line, Jordan Morgan is finally playing his natural position of left tackle.

When the Packers drafted Morgan, they insisted that was the role he’d play in the NFL, despite speculation they were drawn to his versatility.

Morgan competed for the left tackle job last year in training camp, but ultimately lost to Rasheed Walker. Gutekunst later would quip he felt that Morgan won the job in training camp, but they needed his help elsewhere.

Make of that what you will, but Trent Williams, for example, is not moving off of his left tackle spot in the name of positional versatility.

This year, there are no caveats, no excuses, and nowhere to hide. Morgan is going to be the team’s left tackle, and they could be working their way into an upgrade. As much as Rasheed Walker helped the Packers ease the transition of losing David Bakhtiari to a litany of knee injuries, he really struggled last season, culminating in a disastrous performance in the postseason against Chicago.

Morgan has started one game at left tackle in his career, and played well against Minnesota at US Bank Stadium.

The flipside of that argument is that it was a meaningless regular season finale in which the Packers ran out a preseason roster against a Vikings team that was fully prepared to head Cancun once the game ended.

Morgan is now stepping into the line of fire as the blindside protector of Green Bay’s franchise quarterback while the team is in a Super Bowl window.

There is not a lot of time to get his feet wet. He’ll need to be good, and there are not a lot of options behind him if he struggles.

Edgerrin Cooper

Last year felt like the year that Edgerrin Cooper was going to make his way into one of the top players in the league at his position.

That did not come to fruition as the playmaking and game-changing plays were few and far between for the second year linebacker.

Cooper had 0,5 sacks, two forced fumbles, and one fumble recovery. He did not have a bad season by any stretch, but the top players in the league make more game changing plays than Cooper did a season ago.

Perhaps a new system with Jonathan Gannon as the defensive coordinator will allow Cooper to be unleashed into a playmaking role rather than a safety net as he was in the middle of the field for most of last year.

He’s now the veteran in the middle of the defense after the departure of Quay Walker, and will be working alongside a new running mate with Zaire Franklin brought in to replace Walker.

With Micah Parsons on the shelf for multiple weeks to start the season, Gannon may have to manufacture pass rush, and Cooper has proven capable of doing that in the past.

Trey Smack

Yes, this list rounds out with a kicker, because kicking issues have plagued the Packers for multiple years.

They have missed at least one kick in a playoff game every year since the 2021 season. Mason Crosby had a kick blocked in the divisional round against the San Francisco 49ers. Anders Carlson missed one kick in each of his playoff games. Brandon McManus missed at least one in each of his playoff games, culminating in last year’s disaster against the Chicago Bears.

McManus’ performance against Chicago caused Brian Gutekunst to act, moving up in the sixth round to select Trey Smack out of Florida to be the team’s next attempt at replacing the team’s all time leading scorer, Mason Crosby.

Gutekunst consistently referred to Crosby as a championship kicker during his time in Green Bay, and the Packers have been searching for one since moving on at the end of the 2022 season.

Smack has yet to make his debut, but he does not have time to waste. Points are precious in the NFL. They’re even more precious in a playoff game. McManus left seven points on the field last year against the Bears, and the Packers lost by four. Furthermore, because of earlier misses, the Packers were chasing a touchdown on Jordan Love’s final drive of the game instead of a potential game-tying field goal.

Maybe that’s not a fair expectation to put on any kicker, let alone a rookie, but Green Bay is not a place for reasonable expectations.

Our Three Questions series continues at tight end, with a look at a few key issues ahead of Packers training camp. ⬇️https://t.co/RUAa5UZuuz
— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) July 10, 2026

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