Green Bay Packers: Ranking the 10 best players on the team
By Joe Kipp
3. David Bakhtiari
There’s no question as to whether left tackle David Bakhtiari is the NFL’s best pass protector. The former fourth-round pick out of Colorado in 2013 has been a model of consistency for five years running. After a shaky rookie season, Bakhtiari stepped up his game in 2014.
Since then, he’s had five straight seasons with pass-blocking grades above 85.0 from Pro Football Focus. Last season, Bakhtiari was the highest-graded pass blocking offensive tackle for the third straight year and was named PFF’s “Pass Blocker of the Year”.
In 2018, Bakhtiari surrendered only 25 total quarterback pressures (18 hurries, four sacks and three hits) on 691 pass blocking snaps, per PFF. Essentially, Aaron Rodgers was only under pressure 3.6 percent of the time at the fault of Bakhtiari. Although he isn’t as fluent at running blocking, his ability as a pass blocker makes him one of the best overall left tackles in the league and the Packers’ best lineman overall.
Still just 27 years old, it wouldn’t be shocking to see Rodgers finish out his career with Bakhtiari as his blind-side protector. The left tackle’s current contract expires after the 2020 season, but the Packers will likely extend his deal before then. At the start of the 2021 offseason, Bakhtiari will still only be 29 years old, so it’d be foolish to let him test the open market. Expect more dominance from Agent 69 this coming season.