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Edge rusher Lukas Van Ness of the Green Bay Packers.

The Green Bay Packers need a pass rusher far more than traditional statistics from the 2024 campaign suggest, and they now have their chance.

Edge rusher Trey Hendrickson, who topped the NFL last season with 17.5 sacks (his second consecutive season accumulating that exact number), remains embroiled in fraught contract extension negotiations with the Cincinnati Bengals that have persisted all offseason. Those issues led to trade rumors that have also lasted months, though early reports indicated Cincinnati’s asking price was so high as to be a non-starter for essentially the entirety of the interested portion of the league.

Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported Sunday, August 17, that circumstances may have changed, as the Bengals are now fielding competing trade offers for the 30-year-old sack specialist.

“With contract talks at an impasse, the Bengals are listening to trade offers for perennial Pro Bowler Trey Hendrickson,” Rapoport posted to X Sunday afternoon. “It’s unclear if the NFL sack leader will be playing elsewhere in 2025, and a trade will be a real challenge. But time will tell.”

Jordan Schultz of Fox Sports followed with a report of his own, which named the Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts and Carolina Panthers as among the top candidates for Hendrickson’s services. However, Schultz almost immediately disqualified the first two teams on the list in the second paragraph of his X post.

“An in-division and in-state trade is highly unlikely, and any deal will be tough regardless,” Schultz wrote. “Cincinnati is believed to want an impact player (or two) plus a draft pick in return.”

Scott Polacek of Bleacher Report had a different take on the most likely candidates for Hendrickson, linking him to the Packers, Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles — all NFC teams.

Trey Hendrickson Represents Pass-Rush Upgrade Over Both Rashan Gary, Lukas Van Ness

GettyPass rusher Trey Hendrickson of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Polacek laid out his case on Sunday, which centers around the relative bust that 2023 first-round pick Lukas Van Ness has become.

“Jeffri Chadiha of NFL.com called ‘improving the pass-rush’ Green Bay’s biggest challenge for the upcoming campaign,” Polacek wrote. “Van Ness, who was a first-round pick in 2023, has not lived up to expectations with seven combined sacks through two seasons, and containing the explosive offenses of the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings will require a better effort.”

Edge rusher Rashan Gary, who inked a four-year deal worth $96 million in October 2023, has been a solid contributor to that facet of the defense, though not an outstanding one. He has tallied 16.5 sacks total over the past two campaigns and earned a spot on the 2024 NFC Pro Bowl team for the first time in his six-year career with 7.5 sacks.

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Edgerrin Cooper Not Answer to Packers’ Pass-Rush Concerns

GettyGreen Bay Packers linebacker Edgerrin Cooper.

Green Bay finished in a three-way tie for eighth in the league with 45 sacks as a team in 2024, though that statistic is somewhat misleading.

The Packers tallied one-third of all of those sacks in just two games: one against the league’s worst team in the Tennessee Titans (eight sacks) in September and another against the Seattle Seahawks in December (seven sacks). Mix in a five-sack game against the Miami Dolphins in late November and Green Bay tallied nearly half of its 45-sack total in just three of 17 regular-season contests — all of which came against teams that failed to make the playoffs.

Green Bay drafted linebacker Edgerrin Cooper out of Texas A&M in the second round (No. 45 overall) in 2024, and he proved the brightest addition to the roster last season on either side of the football. He finished sixth in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting and finished second among all linebackers in pass rush grade with a mark of 90.1, per Pro Football Focus, after producing 11 QB pressures and four sacks.

However, Cooper isn’t a pure edge rusher and is crucial to the Packers’ ability to stop the run as a tackler as well as help in pass coverage — two areas where he also excelled as a rookie.

The Packers need another true edge rusher, and Hendrickson fits the bill. He’s scheduled to earn $21 million in 2025 on the final year of his contract, while the top-paid pass rusher in the league (T.J. Watt of the Pittsburgh Steelers) is currently making $41 million annually.

Max Dible covers the NFL, NBA and MLB for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns. He covered local and statewide news as a reporter for West Hawaii Today and served as news director for BigIslandNow.com and Pacific Media Group’s family of Big Island radio stations before joining Heavy. More about Max Dible

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