Packer Central

Packers-Rams Big Matchup: Jared Verse vs. Rasheed Walker

The NFC’s Defensive Rookie of the Month will be hunting Jordan Love during Sunday’s Packers-Rams game in Los Angeles.

Bill Huber

Green Bay Packers guard Elgton Jenkins (74) and offensive tackle Rasheed Walker (63) block Vikings linebacker Pat Jones II.
Green Bay Packers guard Elgton Jenkins (74) and offensive tackle Rasheed Walker (63) block Vikings linebacker Pat Jones II. / Mark Hoffman/USA TODAY Network via Imagn Images
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – Los Angeles Rams first-round pick Jared Verse, the NFC’s Defensive Rookie of the Month, will be the man to watch in Sunday’s game against the Green Bay Packers.

Mostly, it will be up to left tackle Rasheed Walker to keep Verse from clobbering Jordan Love. Of Verse’s 179 defensive snaps, 139 have come as a right outside linebacker in the Rams’ 3-4 scheme. That means he’ll see plenty of Walker, the Packers’ left tackle.

Verse is off to a great start. While he’s got only one sack, he led all NFL rookies with five tackles for losses in September. And he was the only rookie with four-plus tackles in every game.

The deeper-dive stats are much more telling. According to Pro Football Focus, 85 edge defenders have had at least 59 pass-rushing opportunities. (That’s the number for the Packers’ Lukas Van Ness.) From that group, Verse ranks:

- Fourth in pass-rush productivity, which measures sacks, hits and hurries per pass-rushing snap, according to PFF. (Kingsley Enagbare is Green Bay’s best at 56th, followed by Preston Smith at 64th, Van Ness at 67th and Gary at 69th).

- Second in pass-rush win rate, sandwiched between two of the NFL’s elite, the Lions’ Aidan Hutchinson and the Browns’ Myles Garrett, according to PFF. (Smith is 56th, Van Ness is 66th, Enagbare is 75th and Gary is 83rd).

- Fifth in pressure percentage, according to Next Gen Stats.

If Verse hadn’t missed so many tackles, he’d rank among the league leaders in sacks. He’s missed 11 tackles, according to PFF. That’s five more than any other NFL edge defender and eight more than all of Green Bay’s defensive ends combined (Enagbare has three, the others have zero).

“It’s more inspiring than anything, because I did not think I had a great month,” Verse said of winning the award via The Orange County Register. “I missed a lot of plays, I missed a lot of tackles. I missed a lot of opportunities to make my team better. … So now thinking about it, it’s like once all those plays start getting made and everything like that, OK, it’s going to be a lot more than that.”

Walker is coming off his best game of the season. While Love was under siege against the Vikings, PFF charged him with four pressures – a good day at the office considering the pass-happy attack. While his six penalties are third-most in the league among all players, he was not flagged against the Vikings.

His man has not hit or sacked the quarterback since Week 1, according to PFF.

According to ESPN, Verse ranks eighth among edge defenders in pass-rush win rate and Walker ranks seventh among offensive tackles in pass-block win rate.

This will be an important challenge for Walker. Verse looks like the real deal – Packers coach Matt LaFleur called Verse “violent and … relentless” – and it’s not as if Love is fully healthy from the Week 1 knee injury. And Walker seems to be rounding into last year’s form.

Verse lived in Chicago’s backfield last week and seems primed to be an impact player.

“To be quite honest, I’m really hard on myself,” Verse said. “I think it should be an immediate thing. But I also understand it’s not that. Some things, it’s just going to take a little bit of time to get built. But the way I see it, I can just push myself more so it can be a quicker transition.”

More Green Bay Packers News

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.