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Packers Total Access: 🔍 Which Packers Pass Rusher Will Start Opposite LVN? Latest Packers News!
The most fiercely contested and championship-defining position battle of the entire 2026 Green Bay Packers training camp is officially underway at Ray Nitschke Field — and the answer to one urgent question will completely shape this defense's identity for the first four to six weeks of the high-stakes 2026 NFL season! The Green Bay Packers enter training camp with one glaring question on their entire defense: who starts opposite Lukas Van Ness while Micah Parsons completes his ACL recovery? Following the departures of Rashan Gary via trade to Dallas and Kingsley Enagbare to the Jets in free agency, Van Ness is locked in as one starter — fully healthy for the first time since his rookie year after battling a foot injury in 2025 and a thumb injury throughout 2024 — but who lines up on the other side when the Packers open at Minnesota on September 13th remains the most urgent and unresolved roster question Brian Gutekunst has left on the board. This is essentially a four-man race between Barryn Sorrell, Brenton Cox Jr., Dani Dennis-Sutton, and Collin Oliver — with Nyjalik Kelly lurking as the highest-paid undrafted free agent in Packers history as a genuine dark horse — and the winner of this training camp battle will be asked to hold down one of the most pressure-packed starting roles in the entire NFC North from Day 1. We are breaking down every candidate, every film detail, and every piece of breaking Packers news that matters right now.
In this complete opposite-LVN position battle breakdown and latest Packers news update, we dive into:
- Barryn Sorrell — The Current Favorite: Sorrell is the current frontrunner to start opposite Van Ness based on last year's rotation — making one start and playing 20 percent of the team's defensive snaps over 14 games, with both Zone Coverage and Acme Packing Company identifying him as the most realistic candidate based on scheme fit and experience. At 6-foot-5 and 258 pounds with a Robert Quinn-type edge-bending frame and 23.5 career sacks at Penn State, Sorrell brings the most complete and NFL-ready skill set of any candidate in the competition — but his 1.5 sacks in 2025 leave real production questions that training camp must answer.
- Brenton Cox Jr. — The Highest Upside Option: Zone Coverage made the definitive contrast clear — Cox offers the higher upside as a pure pass rusher while Sorrell provides the steadier, more complete game — and the film from Cox's four-sack, six-game stretch in 2024 after Preston Smith was traded remains the most compelling argument that the starting role should be his. The question is not talent but health and consistency, and if Cox arrives at camp in the best shape of his career, the competition gets dramatically more interesting from Day 1.
- Dani Dennis-Sutton — The Rookie Wild Card: Gutekunst stated post-draft that the Packers tried to move into the third round to select Dennis-Sutton before landing him in the fourth — and with 23.5 sacks and 34.5 tackles for loss at Penn State, the rookie enters camp on equal footing with every veteran in terms of experience in Gannon's new system. The scheme-installation level playing field is the most critical context point the national media is missing — and if Dennis-Sutton's minicamp flash translates to padded practice dominance, his path to meaningful early-season snaps is more realistic than anyone outside 1265 Lombardi Avenue currently believes.
- Collin Oliver & Nyjalik Kelly — The Dark Horses: Oliver was a 2025 fifth-round pick whose lone significant NFL tape — 31 snaps against the Vikings in Week 18 producing a tackle for loss and two QB hits — showed genuine pass-rush tools, while Kelly is the highest-paid undrafted free agent in Packers history whose pre-draft projection as a potential Day 2 pick gives him the kind of physical profile that could make him an X-factor in the deepest and most unpredictable position competition of the entire training camp.
- The Breaking Packers News That Changes Everything: Packers.com's own countdown-to-camp coverage published just hours ago confirmed that Van Ness is fully healthy for the first time since his rookie year — carrying 10.5 career sacks including his postseason sack against the Bears — and that who starts opposite him "will be one of the more intriguing competitions of training camp and the preseason." With pads going on July 29, the answer to the most important defensive question of the entire 2026 season is about to be decided in real time — and Packers Total Access will have every update from the moment the competition begins at Ray Nitschke Field.
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