Packers' Lukas Van Ness emerges in comeback OT win over Jets: 'He's a dog'

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Before he even showered in the visitors' locker room at MetLife Stadium after Sunday's game, Micah Parsons grabbed his cell phone and opened X.

"90," he posted simply, followed by a lion's face emoji and an exclamation point.

Parsons is the president of the Lukas Van Ness Fan Club, and Sunday was his proudest moment yet in that role.

Van Ness, who wears No. 90, is the Packers' fourth-year edge rusher and 2023 first-round pick. Green Bay selected him No. 13 that year with the first-round pick they swapped with, fittingly, the New York Jets in the Aaron Rodgers trade.

Van Ness has yet to truly break out. He began to last season before a foot injury sidelined him for two months. The Packers exercised his fifth-year option this offseason, guaranteeing him almost $14 million for his fifth season after not doing much in his first three. Even so, the Packers remained giddy about Van Ness' potential and that optimism train was led by none other than one of the league's best edge rushers in his own locker room.

"I think by the end of this season, if Luke stays healthy, I think he'll probably be the (fan) favorite," Parsons told reporters in early June.

A fan favorite over Parsons himself?

"I'm already a favorite, but I definitely think I'm going to have my hands full with Luke on who's going to be the best."

Maybe, just maybe, Parsons knows football. Just a little bit.

Van Ness' best game yet came in Sunday's 20-17 overtime win against the Jets. He racked up a stat line finally fitting of his draft position: nine tackles, three tackles for loss, four quarterback hits and one and a half sacks. After the Packers became known over the past year-plus for their inability to finish, including in last Sunday's collapse against the Minnesota Vikings, Van Ness led the charge in shutting the door after a double-digit fourth-quarter comeback to prevent the Green Bay sky from falling.

"He was all over the place," Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said. "He's really coming into his own. And I think we've seen that. We've seen it all offseason. I think you even saw flashes last year. He just was injured so much. I think he can be a very impactful player for us."

As if the pressure on Van Ness wasn't already at a fever pitch entering his fourth season, Parsons' absence to start the year only magnified the reality that this is a put-up-or-shut-up year for the athletic marvel they call "Hercules." Not literally, since the Packers guaranteed Van Ness' salary for next season, but the point remained that he needed to show once and for all why the Packers drafted him so high three years ago. The edge rusher room was his and still is until Parsons returns sometime in the next month, and the spotlight was squarely on him without the team's best player occupying double teams on a regular basis.

Van Ness wrecked camp, picking up right where he left off before that Week 6 foot injury last season that sidelined him far longer than anyone inside the building thought it would. Besides jumping offsides too much at Ray Nitschke Field, and at U.S. Bank Stadium in Week 1 for that matter, Van Ness offered glimpses of why it was finally time to believe in him beyond Parsons' hype.

Van Ness made plays throughout Sunday's game, first hustling to the sideline from the opposite hash to limit quarterback Geno Smith to a 1-yard scramble on third-and-10. Later in the first quarter, he brushed aside tight end Jelani Woods to help bring down running back Breece Hall for a loss of 3 on first-and-10. Two plays later, he bull-rushed left tackle Olu Fashanu into Smith's lap before reversing course and taking out Smith's legs when he stepped up in the pocket.

Van Ness even made plays in coverage, stuffing tight end Jeremy Ruckert on a second-quarter dump-off on second-and-9. In the third quarter, he threw right tackle Armand Membou to the ground before helping take down Hall for another loss of 3 on second-and-6 after others held him up behind the line. The very next play, Van Ness breezed by right guard Joe Tipmann to pressure Smith into a third-down incompletion.

"That's just a guy that we're hoping to turn into a game wrecker, and you can see the flashes of it," safety Evan Williams said. "You can't leave him one-on-one on the island. He's going to find a way to get to that quarterback … he just keeps showing up, keeps popping up on tape. It's not surprising for us. We see him do it. He had a great camp and he continues to impress me, and he's going to keep doing his thing."

Those weren't even the crunch-time plays, either.

Perhaps the reason the Packers had lost six straight entering Sunday is that Parsons missed five of those games entirely and didn't finish a sixth, the first game of that losing streak last December in Denver. Former Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley likened Parsons to Mariano Rivera, the legendary New York Yankees closer. Parsons finished games with emphatic pass rushes, so it's no surprise the Packers have struggled to do so without him.

Van Ness aptly filled that role against the Jets.

New York faced a second-and-10 from their own 41-yard line with 2:40 remaining in a tie game. Van Ness dropped into coverage and tackled wide receiver Garrett Wilson two yards short of the sticks. On third-and-2, he stood up Hall one yard short. And on fourth-and-1, he beat Ruckert inside off the edge to stuff running back Braelon Allen, turn the Jets over and potentially prevent the Packers' first 0-2 start in 20 years.

"We had called a pressure from the right side, so I was able to kind of tighten down and I saw the back step up and before I knew it, I was kind of was able to just sneak through the backfield and come clean and obviously was a huge turning point in the game," Van Ness said.

Van Ness added that there's been an emphasis on ignoring the quarterback's cadence to help eliminate the offsides penalties that have plagued him and others since the start of training camp. He said that, instead, he was eyeing the left tackle's movement to time his rush properly.

"My job was just to get in that C gap between the tackle and the tight end," Van Ness said. "It was a down block and just kind of get vertical and make a play, so I was just set and you're just going off first movement."

And that three-play sequence doesn't even include leaving Membou in the dust on second-and-16 in overtime, when Van Ness swam by the standout right tackle to help sack Smith for a loss of nine.

"I just came in today and I was just focused on dominating," Van Ness said. "I've always maintained belief in myself. I know what I'm capable of, but again, it's been a process. It's day by day. I'm not focused about the outside noise or what people are saying outside the building. All I care about is the people in the locker room and the building and just continue to progress one percent every single day and again, when you do that and you're consistent, that's when you have these performances."

Dominate he did, much to the delight of one teammate who's watched Van Ness navigate the turbulence of his early career.

"Lukas has been a close friend of mine," fellow 2023 draftee tight end Tucker Kraft said. "We've both kind of grown up together in this team, in this organization, so seeing all the work that he's put in, seeing it come to fruition, it puts a smile on my face because I have to practice against him every day and I know how good he is. And barring injury last year, he would've been doing the same stuff. He was already doing the same stuff that he's doing right now, so with a guy like Lukas Van Ness, you hate to say the sky's the limit because I think that he can be even better than that. He's a dog. He's a physical specimen and I'd hate to have to play against him when the lights are actually on."

Van Ness has proven over the first two games that he can help keep the pass rush afloat without Parsons. On Sunday, he did that and then some.

Parsons is eligible to begin practicing this coming week, so what can they accomplish together? When Parsons is healthy and Van Ness plays like he did against the Jets? Amid a rocky start to this Packers season, that's something worth fantasizing about.

"I can't wait for the day he gets back," Van Ness said. "We're gonna have a lot of fun together."

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.