Green Bay Packers rookie report following first quarter of 2016 season
By Kenn Korb
Kyler Fackrell
Of all the rookies on the team, Fackrell may be the one garnering the most excitement right now.
He has only seen a small handful of snaps compared to his other pass-rushing brethren (his 65 defensive snaps sit behind Clay Matthews, Julius Peppers, Nick Perry, and Datone Jones at that spot), but he’s produced at a high rate when he gets on the field.
His performance against the Giants was especially strong. In only 14 snaps on defense, Fackrell managed 5 tackles, a sack, and a forced fumble. PFF was particularly impressed with his efforts, crediting him with a hit, a hurry, and 3 pressures on his way to an 82.3 (on a 0-100 scale) night. Along with his strong play rushing the passer, he also has quickly become a stalwart of the special teams unit (72.07% of special teams snaps).
The only problem for Fackrell is all of those options ahead of him.
Part of why his snap count is even as high as it is can be credited to injuries to Matthews keeping him out of the Week 3 game against Detroit and limiting him to 28 snaps against the Giants; as he continues to get healthier, he’ll undoubtedly rise back into the 50s each week. Perry has been one of the best edge rushers in the entire league — as well as ranking behind only Micah Hyde and Morgan Burnett on Green Bay in PFF’s run defense grading — so taking him off the field wouldn’t be prudent. Peppers hasn’t been showing up on the stat sheet like he used to, but he’s still above-average pass rusher, and Datone Jones is key to their efforts in run defense.
Still, with this level of production it will be hard to not find more ways to put Fackrell on the field.