It was a vintage offseason for Green Bay Packers defensive end Rashan Gary. Even on his days off, he rode an elliptical. And there was studying. Lots of studying.
“Shoot, starting in the offseason, go back, watched all last season,” Gary said after Thursday’s practice at Packers training camp. “Finding room to improve, especially first year being in a 4-3. Just going back, seeing how to play play-action faster, seeing how I can get home more on third down. Just basically trying to find a way to be more disruptive in the season. And coming back from OTAs to now, I feel like I did a great job understanding where I need to go, fit, just to create more havoc.”
The Packers need more havoc from Gary, who went from nine sacks and 22 quarterback hits in 2023, when he was coming off a torn ACL, to 7.5 sacks and 15 quarterback hits in 2024. While Gary earned his first Pro Bowl accolades, he wasn’t a game-wrecker often enough on passing downs.
Last year, Gary had to adapt to a change in defensive schemes. This year, it’s a change in position coaches with the hiring of DeMarcus Covington as defensive line coach. While the Packers used three Day 3 draft picks on defensive linemen, Covington truly is the big addition to a unit that must create more havoc as a group.
While Gary is trying to win each rep on the practice field, he’s also honing in on the fundamentals and philosophies being taught by Covington.
“Both,” he said. “We’re all competing throughout a rep so, of course, I want to win the rep but most importantly making sure that my hand placement’s where it needs to be so when it gets time to have joint practices or when it gets time for the season, it shows.”
After a relatively quiet camp in terms of splash plays, Thursday was an encouraging day. During one-on-ones, Gary had a couple of impressive wins against standout right tackle Zach Tom. Later, again lined up over Tom, Gary had back-to-back impact rushes to chase Jordan Love out of the pocket during team drills.
“Right now, just really buying into what the craft that DC is telling us,” Gary said. “Just working on small stuff, working on staying square in the run game. Just real small fundamentals on pass rush, making sure that my hands (are) crispy. That's why I really haven't worn gloves. I'm at the point where I want to feel the offensive lineman’s hands, make sure that I'm winning clean, making sure that if I need to grab the inside pad or the V in the neck that I'm actually grabbing it. So, that's where I'm at right now.”
Gloves mean some protection at a position that requires violent hands. Gary, though, wouldn’t rule out going glove-free into the season.
As for Covington, Gary said he has “brought swagger” and instilled it into a unit that counts for former first-round picks – Gary and Lukas Van Ness at end and Kenny Clark and Devonte Wyatt at tackle – in its starting lineup.
What does swagger in a coach mean?
“Swagger as a coach is him coaching you, him understanding that what he's coaching you works and, when you do it, it comes to fruition,” Gary said. “I don't know how many times we had a play(-action) pass. That's one thing today we worked on was a bull-pull on a play pass. I felt it right away, chased Jordan out the pocket. That’s just taking the individual reps. That’s having swagger as a coach.
“‘All right, work this,’ and then you see the fruition as a player. And then us, the more reps that we get, the more times that we see us winning – ‘Oh, see, this worked.’ – you start getting confident and you start performing at a high level.”
As the media session opened in the locker room, Gary and Van Ness sat next to each other studying what had just transpired at practice. Gary said that’s part of holding each other accountable as two of the team’s primary pass rushers.
“Me and Lukas have been working,” Gary said. “If I hit a move on Sheed [Rasheed Walker] or I hit a move on J-Mo [Jordan Morgan] or vice versa, I hit a move on Zach Tom, just us talking about how they like setting him to me. And me and Lukas (are) kind of similar with the type of rushers that we are.
“So, it's basically making sure that third down or second-and-long, get it back on track, that we know our down and distance, and then down and distance is really going to tell us what the offense is doing. So, making sure that, ‘All right, Lukas, stay on your line.’ Or, ‘Hey, RG, you said you were going to work on this today.’ So, making sure what we said we were going to work that we’re working on it day in and day out.”
It was a good day for Gary, but he’s not content. Covington teaches playing hard. That’s never a problem for Gary. Now, it’s learning the finer points about hand placement and how to attack specific blocks and schemes so he can create the type of havoc the defense needs and expects.
“Yeah, man, my job is to push myself to be consistent,” he said. “I've been having a good camp in terms of where my mind is at in terms of my rush plan that I've been working all year. So, the main thing’s just be disruptive, chasing plays from the backside, knocking it back, just making it hard for my offense to move the ball my way and just trying to bring us together as a defense.”
