Green Bay spent the offseason trying to stop the same conversation from following its offensive line into 2026. Three games in, that conversation was still there.
The Packers had already made the move that signaled a reset: they let Josh Myers walk after the 2024 season, watched him sign a one-year deal with the New York Jets worth $3.5 million, then shifted Elgton Jenkins to center and signed Aaron Banks to a four-year, $77 million contract. Since then, the line has kept changing around them. Green Bay brought in three guards after the Week 3 loss to Atlanta, and head coach Matt LaFleur said there’s a chance two of those new signings could start in Week 4.
That is the backdrop for a matchup that, on paper, should offer some relief. The Packers’ revamped front is drawing what has been described as arguably the NFL’s worst pass rush, with Tampa Bay ranking dead last in pass rush. Nick Ercolano of BDGE posted on X that before Green Bay beefed up its line, the Packers ranked 32nd in pass protection, while the Buccaneers were last in pass rush.
The numbers do not make the Packers’ situation simple, though. Tampa Bay also brings a top-three blitz rate at 39.6 percent, even if its pressure rate sits 22nd at 21.7 percent. And there is at least one more wrinkle: rookie Rueben Bain Jr. is dealing with a groin injury and could sit out the Week 4 matchup.
For Green Bay, the bigger issue is that this line is still trying to become a line.
Four of the five starters are playing out of position, and that has shown up in the results. Jenkins had moved to center when the Packers signed Banks to try to stabilize the group, but both players missed time a season ago and, when they did play, left more to be desired than Packers fans have come to expect from the big men up front. Banks has also been limited by injuries since camp, where he and Zach Bako-Bewele were dinged up for most of the summer. Bako-Bewele was ready enough for Week 1 against Minnesota, but Banks has missed two of the first three games.
The Packers have been here before. Jenkins fractured his leg in the loss to Philadelphia, and Green Bay cut him after the season ended. He later signed with the Cleveland Browns, leaving the Packers with a dead cap hit of $4.38 million. That is part of the cost of the earlier shuffle, and part of why the current version of the line still feels like a work in progress rather than a finished answer.
It also keeps pointing back to the Myers decision. Another Packers piece argued that Green Bay is still reeling from the Josh Myers-Creed Humphrey mistake, and the contrast is hard to miss: Humphrey has been selected as an AP All-Pro three times and made four Pro Bowls. Myers, meanwhile, was allowed to leave after 2024, and the Packers are still sorting through the consequences of the move that followed.
There is also the timing question. Green Bay needed to make upgrades after three games, but the broader coverage around the team has already asked why the Packers waited until after Week 3 to address the line when the need had been visible last season and throughout the offseason. The answer is not in the box score. What is clear is that the Packers are now trying to patch the problem while the season is already moving.
That makes Week 4 less about a clean fix than a first real look at whether the fix can hold. The matchup should give Green Bay a chance to settle the front, and if the new pieces are going to start building cohesion, this is the kind of game that can help them do it.