Following kicker Anders Carlson‘s struggles down the stretch of the 2023 regular season and into the playoffs, the Packers signed Jack Podlesny to a reserve/futures deal in January and subsequently added veteran Greg Joseph in March. The trio remained on the roster throughout the offseason and engaged in what ESPN’s Rob Demovsky called an “intense three-way competition” this spring.
Per Demovsky, that competition could well continue into training camp, and it is a reflection of how poorly Carlson’s rookie season ended. A sixth-round draft choice last April, Carlson was essentially handed the placekicking job, as Green Bay did not even roster another kicker during last summer’s training camp. Although his season started out well enough, Carlson misfired on 10 kicks (field goals and PATs) over the final 12 games of the campaign, including the playoffs. That was capped by a devastating miss on a 41-yard field goal attempt in a divisional round matchup with the 49ers, which would have given the Packers a seven-point lead with a little over six minutes to play. Green Bay ultimately lost the game by a 24-21 score.
Carlson’s 87.2% success rate on PATs was the worst mark among qualified players in the 2023 regular season, and his 81.8% FG perecentage was a bottom-10 showing. That said, team brass clearly thinks highly of him, and he did perform well this offseason. Said head coach Matt LaFleur, “I think Anders had a pretty solid spring. I think all these guys have kind of had their moments, but I think particularly of late, he’s done a really nice job.”
Joseph, meanwhile, finished with an even lower FG success rate in 2023, converting at an 80.0% clip (though he did sink 94.7% of his extra point tries). He at least offers a fair amount of experience, having served as the Vikings’ primary kicker over each of the past three seasons and having also seen action with the Browns and Titans. His 82.6% career conversion rate on field goal attempts is uninspiring, and as Demovsky notes, the South Africa native has not kicked particularly well at Lambeau Field, connecting on just three of his seven career attempts at Lombardi Avenue. Nonetheless, he said he chose to sign with the Packers because he “liked the opportunity,” meaning that he believes he has a real chance to unseat Carlson.
The dark horse candidate, Podlesny, was signed by Minnesota as an undrafted free agent last year and actually engaged in a brief training camp battle with Joseph for the Vikes’ kicking job, a battle that Joseph obviously won. Podlesny signed with the Packers in the midst of his search for non-football jobs, and like Carlson, he also ended offseason work on a high note.
Podlesny acknowledged that he does not know what the Packers are planning for training camp with respect to their kicking situation, and LaFleur is playing it close to the vest as well.
“I think that’s to be determined, quite honestly,” LaFleur said at the end of last week’s minicamp. “We’ll see how it all plays out, and ultimately that’s going to be [GM Brian Gutekunst‘s] decision. But that’s something that we’ve certainly talked about.”
Controversial take here on a lukewarm subject, however counterintuitive, kicking competitions work against players, coaches and fans.
Kicking is about accuracy and consistency under pressure. Nothing inspires confidence more than when a team commits to a particular kicker their potentially game/orginizational/regime swinging special teams plays. When 75-90 people all believe in your ability, you will perform better, and be mentally tougher when you do not succeed. No kicker makes all their kicks.
When you establish a culture specifically for the kicker, a position in which consistent performance is 98% mental toughness, and that culture is that the organization has access to one or TWO guys on call or on the practice squad in case you miss an XP or critical FG, it creates an unnecessary mental burden on a player that needs to be able to work his craft without distraction.
All NFL kickers getting a chance to make a roster have a baseline distance profile, the accuracy and consistency is what matters most. Commitment to one guy eases that burden on the player immensely, and prevents the coaching staff from making a coin flip call between guys with basically the same ability.
Of course your Justin Tuckers would establish themselves as top dog in a 3 way kicking competition, but there’s only one guy like him on the planet. If three guys go into this preseason and one hits a 60 yarder, one goes 8/8 in XP tries and one hits 3/3 40+ yard figs and converts an onside, the fans will latch onto each one according to their own biases. Same with coaches and executives.
Whoever wins and ends up on the roster, will now have people referencing the guy they thought should’ve won the kicking job, each time the competition winner fails his job on Sunday, which will happen to all kickers.
Everyone is better off committing to one guy, allowing him to reach an appropriate number of opportunities in actual games, and judging him after 15 FGs and 20 XP attempts or whatever appropriate threshold that is. Not one game or four games. I’d rather let a guy struggle for half a season to have 3.5 seasons of consistent production afterwards, than change kickers 6 times in 4 years.
There is immense pressure and game swinging moments hanging on your kickers leg. Throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks is not a strategy that inspires confidence for anyone in the position that arguably requires it the most.
They took the no competition, ‘we have complete confidence in you’ approach last year, and the result was he got worse as the year went on.
Nevermind that Carlson was inconsistent for the majority of his college career.
Perhaps he just can’t handle the pressure, whether he has complete support from everyone or not. Or he lacks the skill. Or both.
I would agree that being a successful kicker is all about being mentally tough and handling pressure. Part of that pressure is knowing there will always be another guy ready to take your job if you screw up. Personally I want the guy that welcomes a training camp competition not the guy who fears it.
If the bossman comes down and says you’re in a competition, of course you want the guy who welcomes the challenge, what other choice do you have anyways.
I am not advocating for Carlson, or any other player. Just a different approach to the position in training camp.
If a kicker is great at the beginning of the season and falters repeatedly in the 2nd half costing you critical games, it’s a really tough spot and someone will have to make a difficult decision about what to do. I’m not against making that change especially for potential playoff teams, I just think you set a guy up for more potential success and increased mental toughness with an earlier commitment from the organization. What he does with that opportunity is completely on his shoulders.
Ok, but again, he had zero competition last year. I believe there was talk near the end of the regular season of maybe bringing someone in. They spent a 6th round pick on him, despite 3 years of inconsistency in college. He had the supposed special teams guru Richie B overseeing his progress (or lack thereof..).
Unless they had someone secretly working with him while in college, I don’t think they could have offered any earlier commitment to him.