Kenny Clark Gets a New Contract, and Could Be Even Better in Jeff Hafley's new Schemes

It's not often that one NFL player signs a third contract with the team that drafted him.

But interior defensive lineman Kenny Clark of the Green Bay Packers is no ordinary NFL player.

On Sunday, it was announced that the Packers had signed Clark to a new three-year deal worth $64 million, and $29 million in the first year. That on top of the rookie deal he signed in 2016 after the Packers selected him with the 27th overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft out of UCLA, and the four-year, $70 million contract extension with $25 million guaranteed he signed in 2020.

Now, there's more money for Clark's services, and that's how it should be.

Last season, in a Joe Barry-led defense that did very little to help anybody schematically, Clark had one of his best seasons with a career-high 10 sacks, and 66 total pressures -- one of the highest totals for any IDL in the NFL. Clark is primarily a three-tech tackle for the Packers, but he also lined up 5% of the time at nose tackle, and 24% of the time on the edge. Not bad for a 6-foot-3, 314-pound force of nature.

And under new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, Clark could be even better. Green Bay's divisional round loss to the San Francisco 49ers ended the Packers' season, but Clark went out fighting, with a sack and three quarterback hurries. The right side of San Francisco's offensive line, led by right guard Jon Feliciano and right tackle Colton McKivitz, had no answers for Clark's furious rush.

Perhaps Clark's best game of the 2023 season came in Week 15 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when he dominated opposing guards Aaron Stinnie and Cody Mauch, with two sacks as the result.

The Packers have other signature pass-rushers in Rashan Gary and Preston Smith, and everybody hopes that the upgrade at defensive coordinator will lead to better results than the team saw in 2023, when Green Bay ranked 27th in Defensive DVOA . Clark has said that he wants to drop under 300 pounds for the adjustments to Hafley's line concepts..

"It's one of things where all my career I've been kind of been playing this way, but in more of a controlled way," Clark said in May . "Now this is giving us a chance to shut all that other stuff off… just use your ability, go up the field and be disruptive. I just think with my get-off and how I am, I think it's going to suit me well."

The tape doesn't lie; neither do the metrics. Kenny Clark is about to go off once again, and the Packers rewarded his unusually high motor with yet another career-defining contract.

Related: Jeff Hafley expresses how much happier he is in the NFL compared to CFB