Lukas
Van Ness.
Lukas
Van Ness.
Iowa· 6'5"· 272 lb· 4.58s 40
"Iowa never started him and he still left as the most physically overwhelming rusher on the field, which is either the best argument for his upside or the reason nobody knows what he is."Pre-draft read
Van Ness played as a hybrid interior-edge disruptor in Iowa's four-man front, sliding from a 4i-technique on early downs to a stand-up rusher in sub packages. The trait that jumps is power through contact: he times the snap, gets pads under a tackle's chest and walks blockers into the pocket with a long-arm that collapses the launch point instead of running him around the arc.
The secondary trait is heavy, active hands paired with rare mass. He is a stiffer, linear athlete rather than a bend-and-corner edge, so his run defense leads his rush plan; he sets a hard edge, stacks down blocks and squeezes gaps. The signature is alignment flexibility — the same rush works from a 3-tech as from a wide-5.
Attacking one-gap four-man front that lets him rush from a 4i or 3-tech on obvious passing downs instead of asking him to win the arc.
Year 1: heavy-rotation power rusher who kicks inside on third down. Ceiling: every-down strongside end who wins with long-arm force.
A wide-9 speed front that asks him to beat NFL left tackles around the corner with bend he does not have.
His value climbs every time a coordinator moves him closer to the football.
Career Highlights: Iowa DL Lukas Van Ness | Iowa Football | 2023 NFL Draft
Iowa DE Lukas Van Ness 2022 Highlights ᴴᴰ
Lukas Van Ness 2022 Highlights | Iowa DL | 2023 NFL Draft Prospect
Van Ness is a 6-foot-5, 272-pound power rusher whose football identity is force, not finesse. He is a former hockey player who came to the line of scrimmage late, and the tape reflects that: exceptional strength and snap timing layered over a pass rush plan still under construction. He wins with a long-arm, a bull rush and a cross-chop, and he is at his most dangerous inside, where his mass and get-off overwhelm guards who cannot match his first step.
The context is the strangest line on his resume: Van Ness never started a game at Iowa. In two seasons he played 27 games as a rotational piece behind veterans and still produced 69 tackles, 19.0 tackles for loss and 13.0 sacks, plus two blocked kicks in 2022. The flags were obvious — limited ankle flexion, a narrow rush arsenal, and a body of work built entirely on partial snap counts against Big Ten opponents who rarely game-planned for him.
The board read him as a projection with an unusually high floor. Evaluators loved the age, the frame and the untapped reps, and pushed him into the top half of round one on the theory that a full-time role would double the production. Green Bay took him at 13 as a long-term replacement for aging edge depth, betting that the rawness was runway and not a ceiling.
- 01
Power conversion
Long-arms and bull-rushes tackles into the quarterback's lap, turning a good first step into a collapsed pocket rather than a wasted rush.
- 02
Interior flexibility
Genuinely dangerous from a 3-tech or 4i on passing downs, where his mass and get-off overwhelm guards who cannot mirror his first step.
- 03
Snap timing
Reads the ball rather than the cadence and fires off the line with rare anticipation for a player with so few career snaps.
- 04
Run defense
Sets a firm edge, stacks down blocks with strong hands and squeezes interior gaps without giving ground on duo or gap concepts.
- 05
Untapped runway
Only two seasons of meaningful football and zero career starts, which makes his production per snap far more impressive than the raw totals.
- 01
Limited bend
Stiff through the ankles and hips, so he rarely corners the arc and needs to win with power or an inside counter instead of speed-to-edge.
- 02
Rush plan
The counter menu is thin; when the long-arm stalls he tends to re-bull rather than string moves together against patient NFL tackles.
- 03
Snap volume
Never started at Iowa and rotated heavily, leaving real questions about his conditioning and technique over a full every-down workload.
- 04
Pad level
Plays tall out of a two-point stance and lets tackles into his frame first, which blunts a bull rush that should win far more often.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.58sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Iowa | 14 | 33 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | Iowa | 13 | 36 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 27 | 69 | 13 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Verified against cfbstats.com game logs; two seasons at Iowa with zero career starts. Season sums match career totals (27 G, 69 tkl, 19.0 TFL, 13.0 sacks). Also blocked two kicks in 2022. Interceptions and fumble recoveries not verified, left null.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Rotational power end whose snap-count upside never fully translated into a consistent every-down pass rush.
The realistic ceiling: a heavy-handed, five-technique power player who anchors a front and gives you rush value inside.
The floor a first-round toolsy rusher fears: flashes and injuries that keep the production perpetually in the future.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Lukas Van Ness played his rookie season as a rotational defensive end for the Green Bay Packers, contributing to their pass rush.
Green Bay used him exactly as advertised and then discovered how long the runway really was. As a rookie in 2023 he played all 17 games in a rotation behind Rashan Gary and Preston Smith and posted 32 tackles and four sacks, mostly on power. In 2024 he again appeared in all 17 games but the production dipped to 33 tackles and three sacks as the counter menu stayed thin. The 2025 season looked like the breakout — coaches and teammates raved about his early form — before a foot injury in October limited him to nine games, 1.5 sacks and three tackles for loss, though he did add a sack and a forced fumble in the wild-card loss at Chicago.
In hindsight, the projection was real but the price was steep. Eight and a half sacks in 43 games is not a top-15 return, yet Green Bay exercised his fifth-year option in April 2026 at roughly $14M guaranteed, then traded Rashan Gary and let Kingsley Enagbare walk to hand him a starting job opposite Micah Parsons. He is still only 25 and the flashes are legitimate. The lesson is the same one his tape told: buying snap-count upside in the top half of round one means paying for three years of development before you know what you have.
Data note: Verified against cfbstats.com game logs; two seasons at Iowa with zero career starts. Season sums match career totals (27 G, 69 tkl, 19.0 TFL, 13.0 sacks). Also blocked two kicks in 2022. Interceptions and fumble recoveries not verified, left null.