The Green Bay Packers are in the midst of an extremely important off-season. A successful draft coupled with some star free agent signings could send this team from playoff caliber to Super Bowl contenders.
However, it could be a while before the Packers announce a starter at a pretty crucial position.
The Green Bay Packers May Wait A Long Time To Decide On Their Starter
According to Forbes’ Rob Reischel:
The competition to become the Green Bay Packers’ kicker in 2024 figures to extend until the final moments of training camp. And between now and then, there could be more drama than anything you’ll find.
“We’re going to keep investigating to try to end up with the best player we possibly can,” Packers special teams coach Rich Bisaccia said Thursday.
Currently, the battle looms between incumbent Anders Carlson, journeyman Greg Joseph, and underdog Jack Podlesny. Bissacia said several times Thursday that he was pleased how that trio is performing in the offseason, but added that anything could happen between now and the start of the season.
In fact, when Bissacia was asked if the Packers will take three kickers to training camp, he said: “I don’t know the answer to that. It might be those three. It might be three other ones. There’s some things going on in a bunch of different leagues.”
The Packers are in this period of uncertainty after Carlson had a disappointing rookie season.
Green Bay selected Carlson in the sixth round of the 2023 draft and handed him the kicking job. Carlson then proceeded to be the least reliable kicker in football and played a huge role in the Packers’ season-ending loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC divisional playoffs.
The Packers Need A Better Season Out Of Their Starting Kicker
Carlson has still time to become an excellent kicker for the Packers, but he hasn’t started well. In his rookie season, he made 81.8% of his field goal attempts, but was just 4/8 on attempts between 40-49 yards, and 3/5 on 50+ yard kicks.
One of the most concerning aspects of his performance was that he made only 87.8% of his extra points.
Last season, many noted that Crosby had difficulty hitting field goals consistently. It wasn’t until his fifth NFL season that he had a made field goal percentage over 80%, but his sixth season he had a horrible 63.6% field goal percentage.
Still, despite his struggles on field goal attempts, the young Crosby still made all of his extra point attempts. From his first year in 2017 through 2013, he only missed a total of two extra points. In fact, it wasn’t until 2014 that Crosby missed two extra points in a season.
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