The Green Bay Packers have a number of star or potential star players on both sides of the ball. On offense, Aaron Jones, Elgton Jenkins, and David Bakhtiari are established Pro Bowl caliber players while there is a ton of excitement around Romeo Doubs, Christian Watson, and Jordan Love. On defense, Kenny Clark, Jaire Alexander, De’Vondre Campbell, and Rasul Douglas have already proven to be reliable players. However, none of them were named the most important player on the defensive side of the ball by The Athletic‘s Matt Schneidman, who covers the Packers.
Devonte Wyatt Is the Most Important Player on the Green Bay Packers Defense
In his mailbag article this week, Schneidman was asked “Who is the most important player on the defense and why is it Eric Stokes?” Schneidman disagreed that Stokes is the most important player on the Green Bay defensive unit. He cited the fact that Stokes will not start even when he gets healthy. Jaire Alexander and Rasul Douglas will start as the outside corners while Keisean Nixon will start in the slot.
Instead, Schneidman identifies second-year interior defensive lineman Devonte Wyatt as the player he believes is the most important on the Packers’ defense:
“I think the most important player on defense has to be someone who starts. Even when Stokes returns to full health, he probably won’t start since Jaire Alexander and Rasul Douglas will play on the outside and Keisean Nixon will start in the slot.
“To me, the most important player on defense is Devonte Wyatt. Kenny Clark has long needed someone beside him to draw double-teams and help him stopping the run and rushing the quarterback. Not a Dean Lowry or Jarran Reed, but someone who actually wreaks havoc in the middle up front. Wyatt will get plenty more opportunities than he did last season, when he played less than 22 percent of the defensive snaps as a rookie.”
Clark has long been the lone consistently effective player on the Packers defensive line. Hopefully Wyatt can get the playing time necessary to take the pressure off of Clark. Last season, Wyatt actually had better defensive grades than every other Packers’ defensive lineman, including Clark himself. If the two, Wyatt and Clark, can clog running gaps and create an interior pass rush, Green Bay’s defense may actually be a force to be reckoned with.
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