Pro Football Focus Suggests Packers Sign This Free Agent
GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers will enter NFL free agency with holes on their roster and money to spend.
While the Packers finished a respectable 10th in sack percentage, they were just 16th in pressure rate. Former first-round picks Rashan Gary (7.5 sacks) and Lukas Van Ness (3.0 sacks) combined for 10.5 sacks.
In picking one free agent for every team to sign, Pro Football Focus says the Packers should sign Khalil Mack away from the Los Angeles Chargers.
“Even at 33, Mack is likely the best free-agent edge defender this offseason,” PFF’s Bradley Locker wrote. “The Chargers star hasn’t slowed down at all, securing 90.4-plus PFF overall grades in both 2023 and 2024.
“Mack’s 137 pressures over the past two years are the 12th most among edge rushers, and his 91.6 PFF run-defense grade ranks first. Mack would be a home-run signing to pair with Rashan Gary.”
Mack will turn 34 next month and just completed his 11th NFL season. He earned Pro Bowl honors for the ninth time and third consecutive season after recording six sacks, six quarterback hits, two forced fumbles and nine passes defensed in 16 games.
His key numbers dropped like a rock this season. In 2023, when he finished ninth in AP Defensive Player of the Year voting, he recorded a career-high 17 sacks and added 21 tackles for losses, five forced fumbles and 10 passes defensed.
That doesn’t mean he couldn’t help.
Gary in 392 pass-rushing snaps had 47 pressures this season, according to PFF. Mack had 48 pressures in 372 pass-rushing snaps, so he was slightly more effective.
However, Mack had more pressures than Kingsley Enagbare (25 pressures in 304 pass-rushing snaps) and Van Ness (20 pressures in 246 pass-rushing snaps) combined while getting about 175 fewer pass-rushing opportunities.
Mack’s pass-rush win rate was 15.1 percent – much better than Gary (12.7 percent), Van Ness (9.8 percent) and Enagbare (6.9 percent).
There were 78 edge defenders who had at least Van Ness’ number of pass-rushing opportunities. Mack ranked 16th in pass-rush win rate while Gary was 34th, Van Ness was 54th and Enagbare was 68th.
Hafley still managed to assemble a winning defense. Rather than relying on a four-man pressure, Hafley had to create pressures to make up for the lack of a pass rush from the defensive line.
“Jeff Hafley has overhauled the Packers' defense,” Locker wrote, but, “Green Bay’s defensive line and edge rushing group hasn’t held up its end of the bargain, slotting only 20th in PFF overall grade and 19th in pass-rush win rate.”
Mack ranks seventh among active players with 107.5 sacks and third with 32 forced fumbles. In nine career games against the Packers, he had 8.5 sacks. That includes two sacks and a forced fumble against the Packers with the Chargers in 2023 and 2.5 sacks against the Packers while with the Bears in 2018.
There are, of course, a couple of problems with this plan.
Typically, the Packers don’t sign older free agents to significant dollars; Spotrac is projecting a $6.8 million contract.
Second, after the Chargers were eliminated by the Texans in the wild-card round, he said he might retire.
“Man, it’s a lot of different thoughts in my head right now,” Mack said. “I can’t really speak on a definitive decision in terms of what I'm going to do because I don't know if I'm going to play football moving forward, so there's some things I got to talk through with my wife, spend some time with my kids and try not to make a rash decision after a loss.”
If Mack decides to return for another season, the Chargers will do what they can to persuade him to return.
“I don’t know if it’s possible to get everybody back,” Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said, “but I want to get as darn close as it’s possible to have darn near all of our players come back, and nobody more than Khalil Mack.”
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