GREEN BAY – Mom’s tears came first. Devonte Wyatt had just hung up the phone, learning his life had changed, the Green Bay Packers were extending him a lucrative second contract, and he knew just who to call.
Wyatt searched for Mom on his phone, but it wasn’t until he heard her tears that the significance of his new three-year, $57 million deal hit him.
“I was like, ‘Mom, we made it. We made it,’” Wyatt said. “… She started screaming. She started screaming and crying, and that’s when I started crying.”
Wyatt said he didn’t know when his extension would come, only that his agent and Packers executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball were working on it. It was one of the signature items on the organization’s offseason to-do list − right there with the expectedly pending extension with tight end Tucker Kraft − ever since the team exercised the fifth-year option on Wyatt’s rookie deal a year ago.
But it also felt like a distant possibility last Thanksgiving. When Wyatt broke his fibula and tore ankle ligaments while being caught in the pile late in a win at the Detroit Lions, it was the type of injury that left no doubt his season was over. Wyatt had been ascending into one of the NFL’s better defensive tackles, assuming a leadership role after veteran Kenny Clark was traded before the season, but it all came to a sudden halt.
“It hurt,” Wyatt said, and he wasn’t talking about the physical pain. “I was at the lowest of my life. I never had a major injury until that Detroit game, and I kind of talked to my family, my teammates, my coaches. They all kind of said trust the process, and that’s what I was doing.”
An operation pieced Wyatt’s leg back together, inserting screws and bands, and he’s back on the field in training camp for the first time since his injury. Wyatt isn’t taking team reps yet, but he said his leg feels normal again. He’s regained flexibility in his motion. Like the injury never happened.
The Packers need him to play that way once the season begins, given who they’ll enter the fall without. Any list of players on their defensive front who will need to be foundational until Micah Parsons returns starts with Wyatt, and he knows that. “I’ve got it,” he said. “I’ll put the whole team on my back.” Wyatt knows the most-important part is if he’s able to carry the pass rush. Two straight seasons, the 2022 first-round draft pick has looked like an ascending star, only for injuries to get in the way.
This team can’t afford a third straight year.
“It could be wicked,” Wyatt said when asked what a healthy season could look like. “If I just stay on that field every game, I’m telling you, it could be wicked for me. Definitely top five, top three, No. 1 D-tackle in the NFL if I just stay on that field. That’s all that is.”
That might seem ambitious for a player who’s never had more than 5.5 sacks in a season, and just four in 10 games last year, but consider the context. One week before his injury last season, Wyatt helped Parsons wreck the Minnesota Vikings offense with a pair of sacks in the second half. With a full season, he might have flirted with double-digit sacks. Only Tennessee Titans defensive tackle Jeffrey Simmons reached that mark last season with 11. Atlanta’s Brandon Dorlus was second among defensive tackles in the league with 8.5.
A year ago, Parsons said Wyatt is the player on the Packers defense who makes his life easier. For years in Dallas, Parsons dreamed of being paired on the edge with a dominant defensive tackle. He found one in Green Bay with Wyatt.
“Every time we’ve given him opportunities with snaps,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said, “he’s produced. Particularly as a pass rusher, and I think he really grew as a run defender since he’s been here. Obviously he’s had some health things where he hasn’t been able to stay healthy as much as we would’ve like, but when he’s been in there, he’s been very, very impactful.”
Wyatt’s emergence before his injury last season was especially impressive considering what the Packers lost on their interior defensive line around him. His potential for a breakout year had to make Gutekunst more comfortable sending Clark to the Cowboys in the Parsons trade, but it left Wyatt to absorb almost all the attention from opposing offensive lines in pass protection. With Clark, an opponent had to make choices on who to double team.
The Packers are hoping they found their solution with veteran Javon Hargrave, who they signed to a two-year, $23 million contract after the Minnesota Vikings released him this spring. Hargrave, who had 11 sacks under Packers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon in Philadelphia during the 2022 season, is a couple of years removed from his best seasons. He had just 3.5 sacks last season but, at 33 years old, he still has more pass-rush ability than anyone Wyatt lined up next to a year ago.
It will take time for the Packers to reap the full benefit of their investment in the trenches, but once Parsons returns, Wyatt believes the defense will be difficult to block.
“Having Hargrave and Micah and me,” Wyatt said, “you’ve got to double team one of us. And if you double team one, you’ve just got to know somebody else is going to win. Hargrave is going to win, or Micah, or me or Karl Brooks. You’ve still got to worry about us.
“That’s what I love about it, just having that veteran and that talent next to you so you don’t have to be worried about being doubled the whole time.”
This article originally appeared on Packers News: Healthy Packers lineman Devonte Wyatt believes elite status is within reach
Reporting by Ryan Wood, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Packers News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ryan Wood, Green Bay Press-Gazette | USA TODAY Network
