Thanksgiving was, for the third straight season, a great day to be a fan of the Green Bay Packers. Walking out of Detroit victorious has elevated Green Bay's playoff chances to 94%.
The only element of Thursday afternoon's game which can irrefutably be described as a 'loss' for the Packers is the injury of starting defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt.
We will likely hear detailed news on Wyatt's injury soon, but Matt LaFleur confirmed our suspicions in his postgame press conference that the early signs are not good.
If this does indeed spell the end of Devonte Wyatt's fourth season in Green Bay, a year where the Packers placed massive faith in him after trading away veteran defensive tackle Kenny Clark, how will the Packers reshuffle their depth chart to allow for the gaping hole #95 leaves behind?
**The specifics of Devonte Wyatt's role**
Wyatt aligns as a 3-tech within Jeff Hafley's scheme, meaning he lines up on the outside shoulder of offensive guards and typically fills the B-gap on run plays.
Interestingly, the Packers have also recently been experimenting with Wyatt aligned as a nose tackle in third-and-long situations in recent weeks, with Micah Parsons roaming free behind him. They showed this exact look four separate times versus the Vikings alone.
[https://x.com/dairecarragher/status/1994209966815637934?s=46](https://x.com/dairecarragher/status/1994209966815637934?s=46)
**Who is the new starter?**
The obvious answer to fill Wyatt's regular 3-tech role is Karl Brooks. While Brooks suffered an ankle injury of his own early last weekend against the Vikings and didn't practice all week, the Packers will hope to get him healthy over the course of the upcoming mini-bye week and have him good to go for the stretch run into the playoffs.
Questions were asked from even before the season began about Brooks' ability to hold up against the run as a 3-tech lineman, but he has made tangible improvements to this area of his game in 2025, backed up by his improvement in PFF run defense grade from 39.7 to 56.2.
What's interesting is who takes on Wyatt's recent pass rushing specialist role at nose tackle — an assignment which requires plenty of chemistry with Micah Parsons who seemingly has a license to go in either direction and attack either guard.
While it would make sense that Colby Wooden simply takes this spot as he's already the starting 1-tech on this defense, the Packers may have answered this question for us when they aligned rookie sixth round pick Warren Brinson right in front of Parsons yesterday afternoon.
**Then who is the 'next man up'?**
Karl Brooks is not going to be able to carry the entire load by himself. Even when both Wyatt and Brooks were healthy, the latter still played 30+ snaps in every game.
The aforementioned Brinson will now be thrust into a much larger role within the defense. This arguably comes at a good time — Brinson has played 53 snaps over the last four days which included 5 pressures on just 14 pass rushing snaps against the Vikings.
Behind Brinson, his Georgia running mate UDFA Nazir Stackhouse has played almost exclusively as a 1-tech, just as he did in college, aside from a quick five snap experiment as a 3-tech against the Cowboys in Week 4.
With Wooden and Stackhouse now all hands on deck at the larger, more anchor-orientated 1-tech role taking on opposing centers, the Packers are going to need some additional help beyond just Brooks and Brunson at the 3-tech spot.
Enter Lukas Van Ness. LVN has played just four total snaps inside the offensive tackles this season, and after re-aggravating his foot injury against the Vikings last week, he hasn't practiced since.
If Van Ness can get back healthy again, I do believe he has a role to play inside the edges of this defense — it's something Jeff Hafley played around with early last season particularly on passing downs when Preston Smith was still on the roster to line up on the edge.
With Parsons and Gary coming off the edges, there's no reason why the Packers can't make an effort to get one of their most impressive athletes on the field in some capacity. Kingsley Enagbare's recent run of form as an edge rusher further promotes the idea to give Van Ness some reps on the interior — they may only need a handful per game to avoid fatigue on Warren Brinson.
Meanwhile, Micah Parsons isn't coming off the field. You could argue that the domino effect of losing Wyatt pushes depth DTs into larger roles, which pushes Van Ness inside and therefore rookies like Barryn Sorrell or even a returning Collin Oliver could start to see more action on the edge. But Micah is literally not coming off the field.
Of Green Bay's 107 snaps over the last four days, Parsons has missed just ten. An edge rusher the caliber of Parsons playing 91% of snaps is almost unheard of (outside of every-down Maxx Crosby in Las Vegas).
Parsons' persistence combined with Enagbare's growth (oh and Rashan Gary's contract) likely stymies any chances for Green Bay's rookie edges to emerge down the stretch this season.
The Packers are up against some high quality rushing offenses over the remainder of the season, most notably the Ravens, and Green Bay are almost sure to have another date with the gigantic Philadelphia Eagles offensive line if they want to go all the way in January.
Luckily the Packers have time on their side. Jeff Hafley and DL coach DeMarcus Covington have a long week to figure out their personnel before testing things out against a Bears team who they will see again just thirteen days later.