GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Julius Peppers had a nice run in Green Bay, but it appears Father Time has finally caught up with him.

Except that’s not how the soon-to-be 37-year-old sees it.

“I know I can make plays,” Peppers said.

Peppers, in the final season of a three-year, $26 million contract with the Green Bay Packers, doesn’t look like the same player he was in the first two seasons of his contract, when he combined for 17.5 sacks (21 counting the postseason), including the ninth double-digit-sack regular season (10.5 in 2015) of his career. Only three other players in NFL history have put together more 10-plus-sack seasons. All three -- Bruce Smith, Reggie White and Kevin Greene -- are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Yet here is.

Peppers, nine games into his 15th NFL season, has barely factored into the Packers’ season.

Of course, he has barely played.

That, more than age and the inevitable physical decline every NFL player faces, is what Peppers insists is the only difference in 2016.

“I don’t know what the perception is,” Peppers said. “I’m the same player that I’ve been.”

Either defensive coordinator Dom Capers and coach Mike McCarthy don’t agree, or they’re still intent on saving him for later in the season. Whatever the reason, Peppers has played just 260 snaps in nine games. At an average of 28.9 snaps per game, that’s considerably fewer than he played in each of his first two years in Green Bay. In 2014, he averaged 48.5 snaps per game in the regular season. Last year, that number dropped but was still at 41.8.

Peppers has just one sack in his past four games and saw his playing time drop from 49 snaps two weeks ago against the Colts to just 19 Sunday against the Titans. The Packers were without Clay Matthews in both games.

“Julius isn't any different than the rest of our defense; I think obviously we'd like to have more production than what we've had the last couple weeks,” Capers said. “But we've had a plan with Julius all along, it really hasn't changed a whole lot. And we've got a number of people at that position that we feel good about, we feel good about their abilities. So, you know, we're just trying to stay the course with the plan that we've had for Julius.”

Earlier this season, Peppers said he would take a wait-and-see approach before discussing his reduced role. But now it’s clear some frustration has seeped through.

“I think everybody would like to play a little more,” Peppers said after carefully considering the question. “I think if you ask [backup quarterback] Brett Hundley, would he like to play, he would say, ‘Yeah.’ So to answer the question, to give you a yes-or-no answer, I would say yeah. Yeah, I would like to play a little more, but I understand my role on this team. I want to try to execute my role to help the team in the best way possible.”

Peppers has mostly been limited to snaps in Capers’ dime package, and within that personnel group, he has split time between outside linebacker and as an interior rusher. He has lined up as true outside linebacker on just 16.5 percent of his snaps, compared with 41.7 percent last season, according to ESPN Stats & Information.

“There’s a fine line with where Julius is in his career and what he wants to accomplish,” Matthews said.

Given that, maybe 3.5 sacks isn’t as bad as it looks. That equates to an average of a sack for every 74 plays. Last year, he averaged one sack for every 63.6 plays. Peppers ranks second on the team in sacks to Nick Perry (who has six) and fourth in quarterback hits.

“We still are trying to figure it out, in my opinion -- how much to play, how much not to play, when to play and those type of things,” Peppers said. “Hopefully soon here, we’ll get it mapped out, and we’ll have it set to how we’re going to move forward.”

He also said the way certain games have gone, especially Week 10 at Tennessee when the Packers fell behind 21-0, has meant far fewer pass-rush opportunities.

At the same time, Peppers said it’s much tougher to be an effective pass-rusher when he doesn’t have an entire game to set up an offensive linemen with a variety of moves.

“If the opportunities are a little limited," he said, "then you’ve got to try to find a way to make something happen the best way you can."