The Philadelphia Eagles exposed the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line depth in Green Bay’s Wild Card loss last year. When Elgton Jenkins exited the game, there wasn’t enough proven talent at interior offensive line to survive Philadelphia’s powerful defensive line.
Even so, Green Bay’s offensive line was an elite pass-protection unit that kept Jordan Love afloat through his injury. Even though their first-round rookie lineman Jordan Morgan missed most of his rookie season, the group was still PFF’s sixth-ranked offensive line.
The Packers bolstered their O-line this offseason to prevent future situations like the one in Philadelphia.
Josh Myers was the line’s biggest weak spot and departed in free agency. Elgton Jenkins is expected to take his spot at center. There’s reasonable optimism that center could be Jenkins’ best spot. The Packers brought in Aaron Banks in free agency, a proven but not yet great lineman who offers a higher floor than Myers. Jordan Morgan is expected to compete for a starting spot. To top it off, the Packers drafted Anthony Belton in the second round.
All the seeds are there for a better offensive line than last season’s. Still, PFF ranked the Packers as their 14th-best unit heading into the 2025 season—a league-average unit and the lowest-ranked in the NFC North. Usually, I’d have better things to do than refute PFF’s findings, but, hey, it’s July.
So, are there legitimate reasons to expect Green Bay’s offensive line to regress so much?
Don't really understand this one for the Packers. GB finished 6th in PFF's OL rankings to end 2024 and then swapped Josh Myers (bad) for Aaron Banks (at least average). Jordan Morgan enters Year 2, drafted Anthony Belton. 14th? https://t.co/dvlAJB0mCk
— Zach Kruse (@zachkruse2) July 7, 2025
On paper, there isn’t any good reason to believe Green Bay’s offensive line would be any worse than last year’s group, barring terrible injury luck.
They have Zach Tom at left tackle, who’s already one of the league’s best tackles with room to grow in Year 4. The line’s best player is returning, healthy, and playing for a new contract.
Sean Rhyan and Rasheed Walker are solid players with competition behind them in the form of Morgan, who could earn either starting spot with a good summer. Morgan remains an unknown at this point. Still, whether he earns an immediate starting job or not, he should push Rhyan and Walker to improve, ultimately enhancing the line as a whole.
Brian Gutekunst’s signing of Aaron Banks was met with some fair criticism; it’s a significant investment for an above-average player. But Banks brings size and consistency to the line and should improve the run blocking (his best metric). At the very least, he’s an upgrade over Myers, who should raise the floor of the unit.
Jenkins is looking for a new contract, but the Pro Bowler should slide into center easily once that situation works out. Jenkins and Love weren’t on the same page when Jenkins took snaps there in relief of Myers this past season, but the two should quickly build chemistry.
That looks like an upgraded group on paper, so why is the unit eight ranks lower than their end-of-season grade?
PFF’s largest concern is the interior offensive line, particularly Morgan and Banks.
PFF ranks Banks as the 33rd-best guard under their metric, while expecting the unknown Morgan to win the starting right guard spot. Morgan is an unknown. It’s a fair assessment of a player with so little NFL experience. Morgan is in play for right guard but hasn’t won the position yet, and he’s also still in play at left tackle. If Morgan wins the right guard spot, he’s replacing Rhyan, whom PFF ranked 67th out of 136 qualifying guards. So if Morgan does win that spot, he’s an upgrade and should raise the floor.
Meanwhile, while they play in different spots, Banks is replacing Myers as a starter along the line, who ranked 46th out of 64 centers. Even if Banks isn’t the top free-agent guard of all time, he’s still bringing more to the line than what they lost in Myers. These changes should at least make the Packers better than they were last season.
PFF doesn’t really have anything negative to say about Green Bay’s line beyond that. So it seems like, in their minds, other teams did more to improve than Green Bay. They specifically praise the offseason moves the Chicago Bears (who they ranked fourth-overall after finishing 2024 at 24th) and the Minnesota Vikings (who went from 18th to seventh) made. The Detroit Lions dropped from fourth to 13th after losing Frank Ragnow and Kevin Zeitler as well as offensive coordinator Ben Johnson.
Overall in their rankings, PFF values continuity across the line. Even if there isn’t an elite individual talent, PFF still values overall solid groups with everyone returning. Ranking knowns over unknowns makes sense, but all four NFC North teams have big changes on their lines. It appears that the big-name star power is where PFF believes the Packers lack in comparison to their rivals.
In another ranking exercise, Sports Illustrated‘s NFCN beat writers made their all-NFC North offensive line, and it didn’t feature a single Packers lineman. Tom might be an elite lineman, but he had to compete with Penei Sewell, who is on a Hall of Fame trajectory. This exercise highlights that while the Packers have good offensive linemen, they lack the same star power as their divisional rivals.
The Bears and Vikings made impressive moves, but like the Packers’ new interior, they haven’t been put to the test. There’s a lot to like on paper, but Minnesota and Chicago’s upgrades are just as much new-toy excitement as Green Bay’s. There are plenty of “ifs” involved in both units, and the Bears, in particular, should always be considered an I’ll believe it when I see it franchise.
Drafting and building the offensive line is one of Green Bay’s long-standing strengths. With new additions, a likely invigorated priority toward run-blocking, and the willingness to add more power into their scheme, the line should be better than last season’s.
The question then becomes, did the Packers do enough to keep up with their divisional rivals this offseason?
The Bears and Vikings made numerous moves to turn weaknesses into strengths. While Detroit may likely regress, they still have the pieces to form a solid group. The 2024 Packers were a good but not great team and need to take a step forward to compete with the NFC’s best. Green Bay’s line is undoubtedly better than it was last season, but we’ll see if it’s good enough to get through those great teams once the pads come on.