Five Breakout Stars Set to Emerge at Packers Training Camp

Breakout stars make champions.

The last time the Green Bay Packers brought home a Super Bowl title, they were powered by a few of those. Clay Matthews grew from a dynamite rookie, to Defensive Player of the Year candidate. B.J. Raji became a folk hero with elite play in the middle of the defensive line and a pick-six of Chicago’s Caleb Hanie in the NFC Championship Game.

Of course, the biggest breakout star of them all that season was quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

Rodgers returned from a concussion for the final two games of the regular season. He tore apart the New York Giants before leading a game-winning drive against the Bears the following week.

Rodgers’ four-game run in the playoffs included two of the best games of his career. He threw nine touchdowns, ran for another and only turned the ball over once. He won Super Bowl MVP honors before winning the league’s MVP the following season.

This version of the Packers could be looking for some potential breakout players to take them from a good team to a great one. Here are five candidates.

No. 1: DT Devonte Wyatt

Devonte Wyatt leads off our list because he’s someone who should be part of Green Bay’s solution of increasing its four-man pressure.

Wyatt was off to a great start in 2024 with three sacks and six tackles for losses before an ankle injury sustained in Week 4 sidelined him for three games and limited him for others. Now, he’s entering his fourth season, and looking to make good on the first-round pick the Packers used on him in 2022.

“I think he’s had some moments where he’s been outstanding, and I think we can build on that,” coach Matt LaFleur said last month. “I think he’s done everything we’ve asked him to do throughout the course of the offseason. I think he’s in a much better place, and I think that he’ll be ready to go. Another guy that I expect to go out there and play his best ball going into Year 4.”

Wyatt’s best ball is incredibly disruptive. He has the ability to live in opposing backfields. Much like the case for any young player, consistency is the name of the game for Wyatt. He needs to play more, which he should have the opportunity to do with T.J. Slaton’s departure this offseason.

Wyatt, if nothing else, is confident he’ll be able to build on what was brewing at the beginning of last season, even if he does not want to say it just yet.

“I don’t like speaking on it,” Wyatt said of the production he missed out on. “I’m more of a go-out-there-and-show-you type of guy. But I’m pretty sure I would’ve had a great year if I didn’t get no injuries.”

His teammates feel that way, too, and believe he could be a budding star.

“Man, just staying healthy and just staying hungry and keep building on what he’s been building on,” fellow defensive lineman Kenny Clark said. “I think if he didn’t get hurt, I think just what he was going to do was going to be huge. He was making a lot of plays and all that kind of stuff, so just keeping that same mentality, keep working, keep grinding and just keep on improving and he’ll be all right.”

No. 2: DE Lukas Van Ness

Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (1) is sacked by Green Bay Packers defensive end Lukas Van Ness. | Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

After a rookie season that saw him steadily improve throughout the year, the arrow appeared to be pointed upward for Lukas Van Ness. However, he had only one sack and one quarterback hit during the first seven games of the season. When Preston Smith was traded at the deadline, the thought was that Van Ness would get more opportunities to start across from Gary. That wasn’t the case.

Van Ness went from four sacks, 10 quarterback hits and eight tackles for losses in 2023 to three sacks, six quarterback hits and six tackles for losses in 2024. A broken thumb didn’t help, but he has never started a game in his NFL career.

The Packers were expecting more when they used a top-15 pick to select Van Ness, but are preaching patience instead of panic with a new defensive line coach in tow.

“I don’t think I’ve ever coached a first-round draft pick,” defensive line coach Demarcus Covington said before the start of OTAs. “So, we have first-round draft picks [here] and we do a great job of drafting here. So, you’re talking to a guy who can develop players and guys who’ve already established themselves.”

Van Ness, who ran with the starters throughout the offseason, looks the part. Maybe Covington will be the key to unlocking that potential.

No. 3: LB Edgerrin Cooper

Cooper may be listed third here, but he is likely the player that will garner the most excitement coming into his second season. By the end of his rookie year, there was an argument to be made that Cooper had the best season of any defensive player not named Xavier McKinney.

McKinney was first-team All-Pro in his debut season with the team. What does Cooper need to do to become an All-Pro?

Defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley had an idea.

“Consistency. We talked and sometimes joked about he might’ve had that gap, but he made the play over there, right?” Hafley said before OTAs. “Like, there was a toss run over there that instead of going over the top of the blocker, somehow he ran underneath the blocker and still made a TFL.

“Now, it’s getting the details down. Now, it’s lining up exactly where he needs to line up and doing it over and over and over again, because then he’s going to show up faster and he’s going to make more plays and he’s going to become a more consistent player.”

Cooper played less than 50 percent of the snaps and started only four games due in part to injuries. This offseason, he bulked up to about 240 pounds.

“He knows what it’s going to take,” Hafley continued. “He knows what he has to do now to stay healthy because as much as we talked about not having him on the field last year, he was injured quite a bit, where he missed a lot of time and didn’t practice and couldn’t play.”

Those injuries were the only thing standing between Cooper and a bigger season. He finished with 3.5 sacks and 13 tackles for losses among 87 total tackles. He added one interception, four passes defensed, seven quarterback hits, one forced fumble and two fumble recoveries.

For the mathematicians, that’s nearly one TFL per game. The numbers would have been astounding had he played even 90 percent of the snaps. He was one of the most disruptive players that Green Bay had as a rookie.

Now that he’s bigger, the hope is that he can stay on the field.

If he does, Cooper’s ceiling with that type of production could be one of the best linebackers in the league.

No. 4: S Evan Williams

Green Bay Packers safety Evan Williams (33) leaves the field following the Packers victory over the Houston Texans. | William Glasheen/Appleton Post-Crescent via the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin-Imagn Images

As a rookie, safety Evan Williams was always around the ball during training camp. While his first season ended with a bit of a thud due to lower-body injuries that hampered him by the end of the season, he earned All-Rookie honors.

Entering Year 2, he’s probably a slight favorite to start alongside All-Pro safety Xavier McKinney. Competition, however, will be fierce.

That’s not new to Williams. He was not expected to be a starter last season but kept making plays in practice to earn his opportunity over fellow rookie Javon Bullard.

Williams’ first big splash came on a game-ending pass breakup in Los Angeles to secure a win over the Rams. He wound up starting six games. When he played, the Packers were 10-3. When he played at least 30 snaps, they were 7-0.

Now, he has his feet underneath him and can just play the defense without having to learn everything on the fly.

“It’s been pretty big for me. I feel like I’m a guy that learns through experience, learns through being in the fire more than just sitting back and watching.” Williams said. “I feel like each rep, each step I’m taking this year, I’m just gaining confidence, gaining experience.

“Honestly, I’m just looking to take that step being a confident football player out there and, hopefully, I’ll have the playbook in my back pocket so I can take that next step and think about other things; think about, ‘OK, what is the offense trying to do here? What is this formation telling me?’ I feel like I could take steps in that department and taking it a step further and becoming a more proactive player rather than just being reactive.”

No. 5: TE Tucker Kraft

Finally, a candidate on the offensive side of the ball. If you’ve been paying attention this offseason, it should be pretty obvious what the Packers want to do with their offense.

They want the ball in Tucker Kraft’s hands, and who could blame them?

“Tuck’s going to be a big part of the offense,” quarterback Jordan Love said. “I think Tuck, since he’s stepped on the scene, has shown who he is a playmaker and shown us reasons why we should just keep getting him the ball.

“I think a big part of going into this season is going to be finding ways to continue to get Tuck the ball, get him as many touches as we can in the game, because he’s a dynamic playmaker and does some really good things once he gets it in his hands. That’s going to be a focus going into the season is trying to make sure we can get him as many touches as possible each week.”

Getting the ball in Kraft’s hands led to good things.

He was the team’s second-leading receiver despite being fourth on the team in targets. Among NFL tight ends, he was No. 1 in yards after the catch per catch and No. 2 in yards per catch.

Manufactured touches could be something that helps, similar to the way Mike McCarthy got the ball in the hands of Jermichael Finley.

The Packers have looked into finding as many ways to get the ball to him as they can.

“He’s a guy that’s shown what he is,” tight ends coach John Dunn said. “It’s down the field, intermediate, at times it’s at or behind the line of scrimmage where he gets the ball. Obviously, he was doing quarterback sneaks, right? There’s screens that he was highly involved in. So, there’s quite a few different ways that you can.

“Obviously, you can be as creative as can be. The great thing about Tuck is he’ll do whatever you ask him and he’s working his tail off to be a complete player, so you can get him the ball in different ways, whether that’s route running, different types of routes, where you put him. Our job is to put him in those spots and he works his tail off to when he does get in those spots to do something with the ball.”

Packers Training Camp Previews

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