Green Bay Packers: 5 Players who need to step up in 2020

4. Oren Burks, LB

We already mentioned how Blake Martinez was a problem for the Packers last season. He never materialized as a three-down linebacker, even though he was asked to be that for this defense. And a big part of the reason he was asked to do that was because second-year player Oren Burks was injured for most of the year when he was asked to step into a bigger role.

Unfortunately, in the limited time that we’ve seen the 2018 third-round pick on this defense, Burks hasn’t exactly looked like a stud. Per PFF (subscription required), the Vanderbilt product has registered a grade below 46 in each of his two seasons, though he played fewer than 70 snaps in the 2019 campaign.

Burks has been a solid run defender, which is good news for the Packers as they’ve struggled in that regard but he’s been quite bad in coverage to this point. While no one should expect him to turn into K.J. Wright after two NFL seasons, improving in that regard would be huge for the Green Bay defense.

More importantly, though, Burks needs to step up and become the anchor of the middle of the defense. He needs to be an upgrade over what Martinez was as a player who registered a ton of tackles but most of them well down the field. If that happens, we could see the Packers defense as a whole be a more effective unit.