The Green Bay Packers might have had a pretty good draft but it doesn’t appear the team is done adding on just yet. Numerous reports out of Packer land have the team looking hard at adding another pass rusher to the mix. The name that has surfaced the most in the past few days to fill that bill is former Baltimore Ravens defensive lineman Elvis Dumervil.
Packers have a hole to fill
The Packers are looking for another pass rusher extraordinaire in part because they chose to part ways with Julius Peppers. Peppers had been a player that had filled a very specific role on the squad.
Despite the fact that he’s on the wrong side of his career, he was still able to bring a certain amount of success to the Packers when it came to getting to the quarterback.
Precisely because Peppers is on the wrong side of 35, Green Bay had decided it was finally time to part ways, rather than offer up another contract. It seems as if the team has regretted that decision a bit since it made it. Peppers is no longer on the market so the Packers don’t get a do over in the strictest sense of the word. They can however replace the role on the team with another possible reclamation project.
Can Dumervil fill Green Bay's needs?
Dumervil would indeed have to be a reclamation project. Last year, he managed to appear in just eight games due to age and injury.
At the same time, when he was able to play he showed he had something left in the tank, racking up three sacks and two forced fumbles. He even recovered one of those fumbles himself.
The year before, the former Baltimore Raven began to show that he was indeed sliding towards the end of his career as well. He played in all 16 games in 2015 but managed to get just two sacks and a single forced fumble.
He did manage to get more tackles than he’s had in a couple of seasons as he finished with 48 stops.
It was in 2014 that Dumervil last showed the Packers and the rest of the NFL what his upside truly is when he’s healthy and feeling good. Thast season, the defensive lineman tied a career high in sacks with a whopping 17 while also forcing a pair of fumbles.
He has reached that number just one other time, back in 2009 when he was still a young buck.
It’s clear the Green Bay Packers feel as though they can get Dumervil on the cheap. If he can step into the shoes that Julius Peppers left behind he would be a valuable addition to a defense that is in the process of a rebuild. It’s just a matter as to whether the team wants to pull the Elvis Dumervil trigger anytime soon.
