2023 Packers roster ranking, 20-11: Jordan Love debuts

The Leap ranks the Green Bay Packers' 90-man roster in order of player caliber.

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With the Green Bay Packers on break until training camp and the personnel essentially frozen for the foreseeable future, The Leap has decided to use this time to release its 90-man roster rankings.

Our methodology: We ordered the players based on ability relative to their respective positions rather than the value of those positions. Put another way, this exercise prioritizes the "best" players, not necessarily the "most valuable" ones. That means the starting quarterback doesn't necessarily have to top the list because of the position he plays.

Each edition of the 90-man roster ranking will include a batch of roughly 10 players. Due to voting ties, some batches will feature one more or one fewer.

Today’s group features exclusively young players with upside and plenty to prove in order to become featured players -- and potentially stars -- for the Packers. Ironically, the most proven player on this list isn’t even a starter and doesn’t have a contract beyond this season.

20. Devonte Wyatt

Position: defensive lineman
How acquired: first-round draft pick (2022)

The captain of the 2022 “Why aren’t they playing more All-Stars,” Devonte Wyatt enters 2023 without veterans to look more professional in practice ahead of him. Dean Lowry and Jarran Reed are gone; this is his opportunity to show he was worth the first-round pick the Packers used to get him last year.

He’s precisely the player Jerry Montgomery telegraphed they wanted to take in pre-draft media sessions: a penetrating three-technique who can create chaos in the backfield. The Read Optional’s Ollie Connolly described Wyatt as being a one-trick pony whose one trick (burst off the line as a one-gap penetrator) is elite.

Wyatt posted three games last year with Pro Football Focus grades of 85 or better, including his highest-graded game in the highest-leverage spot in Week 18 against the Detroit Lions when he had a sack and a run stop.

If he’s a first-round pick in practice, he changes the math for this defense.

T-18. Lukas Van Ness

Position: outside linebacker
How acquired: first-round draft pick (2023)

Speaking of changing the math, Lukas Van Ness nearly breaks the scale when measuring athleticism. He’s a reformed three-technique who moved primarily to the edge in his final season at Iowa and is just scratching the surface of his estimable physical potential with his 9.39 Relative Athletic Score.

His 80.9 run defense grade last year was elite, as was his 18.8% pass-rush win rate as charted by PFF. The Packers will need both of those things with one of the leakiest run defenses in football and a pass rush that projects to be without Rashan Gary to start the season coming off an ACL injury.

Much like Wyatt, if LVN starts to give on-field play that matches his physical tools, this defense has a gear to get to that even the most clueless defensive coordinator would struggle to ruin.