Green Bay lost defensive tackle Javon Hargrave for the season on Monday. Tests confirmed a torn Achilles suffered during Sunday’s 31-7 win over the Chicago Bears.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter put it plainly: “Tests today confirmed that Green Bay Packers DT Javon Hargrave suffered a season-ending torn Achilles.”
On Sunday it was a fear. By Monday afternoon it was a diagnosis, and the Packers lost a starter they signed this offseason specifically to fix the middle of their defensive line.
The Stat Line Undersells What He Was Doing
Hargrave had six tackles, two quarterback hits and one pass defensed through five weeks. Those are not numbers that make anybody panic.
Interior defensive line production never shows up in a box score the way it shows up on film. Hargrave’s job in Green Bay was to collapse the middle so that the edge rushers had something to work with, and to occupy two blockers on run downs. Both of those things are invisible until the guy doing them is gone.
He signed a two-year deal with Green Bay this offseason and was under contract through 2027. The Packers now get the 2027 season and almost none of 2026.
This Is the Second One in Two Weeks
Here is the number that should worry Green Bay. Hargrave is the second Packers defender to tear an Achilles in a two-week span. Linebacker Edgerrin Cooper tore his in Week 4.
Two Achilles tears on the same defense inside 14 days is bad luck more than it is anything diagnosable, and bad luck does not care that a roster was built assuming both players would be available in January.
Add in Micah Parsons, who is still working back from last December’s torn ACL and is not expected to practice this week, and Green Bay is running a defense without three of the front-seven pieces it planned around.
The Packers Are 3-2 and the Math Is Getting Harder
Green Bay just handled Chicago 31-7 and did it with five takeaways. The defense has been functional. It has also been getting thinner every week while the team sits two games back of 5-0 Minnesota in the division.
Sunday night brings Dallas, without Parsons and now without Hargrave. The Packers will have to generate interior pressure from whoever is left on the depth chart, and that is a real problem against an offense that will happily sit in the pocket and pick a defense apart.
What Happens Next
Green Bay has two options and neither is exciting. Promote from inside and accept worse play in the middle, or go shopping before the trade deadline for a rental defensive tackle at a price inflated by its own desperation.
The Packers believed they were a contender in September. The version of that team they put on the field in October is going to look noticeably different, and the gap is now entirely on the defensive side.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.