Player Bio
Van Ness earned first-team all-state notice his senior year at Barrington High School in Illinois before signing with the Hawkeyes for the 2020 season. He redshirted as a true freshman but made an impression the following fall, recording 33 tackles, 8.5 for loss, with a team-high seven sacks in 14 appearances to earn Freshman All-American notice. Van Ness did not start any contests in 2022, either, but still garnered second-team All-Big Ten accolades after leading the Hawkeyes with 11 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks among his 38 tackles in 13 games played. He also tied for sixth nationally with two blocked kicks. -- by Chad Reuter

Overview
Nicknamed “Hercules” by teammates, Van Ness is a well-developed defensive end with excellent lean mass and additional growth still to come. He’s a power-centric prospect with force as his modus operandi as both a run defender and pass rusher. Van Ness needs to work on hand attacks for quicker block shedding and to diversify his rush beyond bull-rush challenges. He’s taken snaps inside at Iowa but might need to keep filling out his frame before he’s ready to succeed as a run stuffer and pass rusher as a 4i in a 3-4 front. Van Ness is more of a splash player than consistent force on tape, but he possesses projectable traits that should allow for continued ascension as a pro.

Strengths
Prototypical frame with outstanding lean muscle mass.
Fires out of stance, capturing neutral zone quickly.
Play strength to anchor and press blocker as two-gapper.
Power in hips to battle through angle blocks.
Sees runner and disengages to tackle with timing.
Wide alignment allows creation of bull-rush momentum.
Long-arm rush move generates good pocket push.
Keeps pushing forward with secondary rush effort.
Agility helps to corral mobile quarterbacks.

Weaknesses
Forward lean can be countered by blockers.
Inconsistent use of hands to control and shed quickly.
Needs more work schooling up hands as a rusher.
Hasn’t learned to transition from bull rusher into closer.
Very average foot quickness for inside rush moves.
Takes too long activating change of direction as twister.
Lacked effectiveness as interior rusher.

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Dude's gonna ball. 

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Seemed like such an obvious Packer sort of pick, high potential, high motor sort of guy. Looking forward to seeing how he develops.

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Packers get LVN and the Pats bounce out if the #14 spot

Gutekunst=#steelyeyedassassin

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OT - I thought I remember that name from somewhere Van Ness from barrington.  I interviewed with his dad for a job (he's a chiropractor) (did a lot of interviews back then).  Seems like chiropractors like to have kids that play football (rodgers).  Hope his son does well playing for his rivals (assuming he was a bears fan his whole life :)

 

Apparently Lukas is dating Frankie Kmet, the sister of Bears TE Cole Kmet . 

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I love this pick. I'm biased towards pass rushers, but there's no way we could've relied on, pretty much, only Rashan Gary. Preson is an average player. Everyone behind him on the depth chart should only be on the field in week 17 after we've clinched the first round bye.

Look at that list of strengths, his Combine numbers combined with his size and his overall build. There's quite a lot of edgerushers who run a sub-4.6 these days, but not a lot who do it at 270+ pounds. 3-cone, the only one faster was Ramirez. That's something you want out of your stand up edge rusher. 

Then to his weaknesses... Just about everything mentioned is something he can work in. There's nothing that's holding him back athletically. Just some work on his technique.

This is really just Rashan Gary all over again. I think Rashan probably has a higher ceiling and is more a freak of nature, athletically, than Van Ness is, but having two 6'4/6'5, 270 guys at OLB who can run like safety/LB-tweeners is something else.
 

So do y’all think he’s going to be a standup OLB who can kick it inside occasionally like we did with Z Smith? I’m not sure how much he stood up in college. Not that he can’t learn it, of course. 

I was hoping to see us trade back into the first when Smith-Njigba started falling. We desperately need some WR help, and not bottom of the bucket type help. 

Hoping we get one of the top TE’s in round 2. Might have to trade up to get Mayer.

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There's quite a few guys out there who I don't feel are that big of a drop-off from the four WRs taken in round 1. I'd be a lot happier with Van Ness + Hyatt/Tillman/Downs/Mingo than Smith-Njigba + Tuipulotu/Hall/Foskey (although I wouldn't mind still adding that last one). I don't think there were any CeeDee Lambs, Justin Jeffersons or Jerry Jeudys for us to pick from this draft. Smart decision to take advantage of drafting this high and taking the best player available, which happens to be at a position of need.

I can't imagine we won't get our WR and/or TE tonight.

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