Wisconsin Football: Cole Van Lanen Signs Futures Deal w/ Packers

The Wisconsin Football program’s Cole Van Lanen was a sixth round pick by the Green Bay Packers in last year’s draft. As a primary practice squad player during his rookie season, Van Lanen will be back in Green Bay for training camp and the preseason after signing a futures deal with the team last week.

Before he was drafted, Van Lanen was a key member of the Wisconsin Football offensive line.

Van Lanen took 1,633 snaps, all at left tackle, during his Wisconsin Football career, allowing just eight sacks and 19 pressures over 694 pass-blocking snaps, according to PFF ($$).

As mentioned above, Van Lanen was on the Green Bay Packers practiced  squad this past season—although he was elevated on few occasions when the Packers were a bit thin along the offensive line.

Van Lanen saw one regular season snap in mop-up duty, and 92 snaps during the preseason where he played both left guard and right tackle. He was credited with two pressures allowed, both of which came in the final preseason game.

Where exactly Van Lanen will ultimately line up with the Packers in the long-run, whether that be guard or tackle, is still a bit of an unknown, however.

"“Cole, we moved him around a little bit to see where he’d most comfortable, at guard or tackle,” offensive line coach Adam Stenavich via SI. “I’m not really sure if he got settled in at any spot. That’s going to be a work in progress just to see where he fits in this league and what his best position is.”"

For a Green Bay Packers team that covets versatility along the offensive line — which we saw on display this past season — Van Lanen may never truly call one position home, but rather be an option at both tackle and guard, depending on what’s needed.

Recently, we’ve seen players like Elgton Jenkins and Ben Braden fill similar roles this past season. With that said, my best guess is that guard is where Van Lanen will have the best opportunity to stick.

"“At this level, especially at O-line, you need to be able to versatile and be able to play all positions or most of them. I’m in that position right now,” Van Lanen said during training camp via SI. “I don’t think it’s been too challenging at all. Being at tackle my whole career, I think it’s a lot easier coming inside than out. Someone that’s played guard, it’s not easy to go out to tackle. But going from tackle is a little easier going to guard, so I think the transition going to those guard reps hasn’t been too difficult for me. Just kind of getting all those reps at all those positions and showing that I can play.”"

The next step for Van Lanen in his development will be earning a spot on the 53-man roster. While the Packers have the core of their offensive line locked in, there is the possibility that both Turner and Lucas Patrick could be playing elsewhere next season, not to mention that it doesn’t look like Braden is going to be brought back—thus opening up a few potential roster spots.

Van Lanen is in an ideal scenario when it comes to the long-term trajectory of his career. He has been given the opportunity to develop and get stronger, while also playing under Adam Stenavich — who was recently promoted to OC — and Luke Butkus.

The two, along with Matt LaFleur, have helped cultivate one of the deeper, and when healthy, more dominant offensive line units in football. There are very few teams who could have overcame the number of injuries and movement that the Packers had to deal with this past season.

According to Over the Cap, Van Lanen will come with a base salary of $825,000 in 2022.