Although it’s essential to note that the pads aren’t on yet, Green Bay Packers first-round choice Lukas Van Ness has looked the part through group OTAs.
Van Ness hasactually been running with the second-team defense up to this point behind Preston Smith, Justin Hollins, and JJ Enagbare. During Wednesday’s practice which was open to the media, Van Ness was a continuous in the backfield. He’s a power rush, utilizing his strength to his benefit as he looks to go from point A straight to point B.
There were back-to-back snaps on Wednesday where he was able to get into the backfield when going up versus Yosh Nijman. The veryfirst came as he utilized that strength of his and popped Nijman in the chest, developing separation, then cut inside towards the quarterback. Another occurred when he had Nijman on skates as he drove him into the backfield. We saw a comparable play from Van Ness last week going up versus Caleb Jones.
However, Van Ness’ most remarkable play came on play-action with Sean Clifford in shotgun and the running back to his left. Van Ness was able to produce separation inbetween him and the dealwith, however rather of going straight to the quarterback, he set the edge and recognized if the running back had the ball priorto then pursuing Clifford for what would haveactually been a sack.
As a group, the Green Bay edge rushes have hadahardtime versus the run, particularly including the ball providers inside, so seeing Van Ness go through the procedure of doing that while still ending up with a mostlikely sack was outstanding for a young gamer. As Packers run videogame planner Jerry Montgomery stated justrecently, enhanced run defense d