After Training Camp And Preseason, Packers’ Kicking Woes Continue

After Anders Carlson missed a chip-shot field goal against the Ravens on Saturday, it’s fair to wonder if the Green Bay Packers’ Week 1 kicker is on another team’s roster.

Green Bay Packers kicker Anders Carlson (17) kicks an extra point against the Cleveland Browns in Week 1 of the preseason. / Scott Galvin-USA TODAY Sports

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers’ kicking problems, which reached their crescendo when Anders Carlson missed a 41-yard field goal during last year’s three-point playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers, have not been fixed.

With training camp and the preseason complete and the Packers getting set to start the 2024 NFL regular season against the Philadelphia Eagles in Brazil in 13 days, do they have a kicker worthy of being on a Super Bowl-contending team?

The Packers must cut their roster to 53 players by 3 p.m. Tuesday. Will Carlson be the kicker again? Will Greg Joseph unseat Carlson? Or is the Packers’ Week 1 kicker on some other roster?

“You know, that’s not even a question for me, to be honest with you,” coach Matt LaFleur said following Saturday’s 30-7 victory over the Baltimore Ravens.

That question, obviously, will fall in the lap of general manager Brian Gutekunst.

Carlson, a sixth-round draft pick last year, missed a league-worst 11 combined field goals and extra points as a rookie and finished 23rd with 81.8 percent accuracy on field goals. During training camp this year, he made 82.2 percent of his field-goal attempts.

Greg Joseph, the Vikings’ kicker the past three seasons but with a track record no better than Carlson’s, slumped after a hot start and made 78.1 percent of his field-goal attempts during camp.

For reference, the league median last year was Eddie Pineiro’s 86.2 percent. Of the 31 kickers with at least 20 field-goal attempts, 11 were better than 90 percent.

“We’ve got a really good sample size, and then we’ll see what happens around the league,” LaFleur said.

That was a telling sentence, hinting that Gutekunst will watch to see who gets released on Tuesday. Eight other teams had kicking competitions. The Patriots and Jets have a pair of veteran kickers on their roster. So, there could be options. A trade is possible, as well.

Against the Ravens, Carlson made a 54-yard field goal to cap the opening drive. After making all five attempts during Thursday’s joint practice against the Ravens, including a pair from beyond 50 yards, it seemed like he was in control of the situation.

But then, midway through the fourth quarter, Carlson missed a 32-yard field goal. By distance, it was a chip shot. By pressure, it came toward the end of a blowout preseason game. By weather, it couldn’t have been nicer.

And he missed. Carlson kicked the ball and never looked up, as if he knew from the moment it left his foot that the kick was destined to sail right of the uprights.

Joseph, whose training camp went off the rails last week with a bad practice in Green Bay and a badly missed kick at Denver, connected from 36 and 55 yards on Saturday.

“Certainly, there were some really good moments,” LaFleur said. “Both those guys went in there, hit a 54-yarder and a 55-yarder, and then there’s a poor moment there where we missed a chip shot. You know, again, a lot of good, some we know we can be better at, and we’ll wait and see.”

Gutekunst has worked to improve the kicking situation. He went the veteran route by adding Joseph, whose string of clutch kicks with the Vikings in 2022 included a 61-yard game-winner. He went the young-guy route with Jack Podlesny, James Turner and Alex Hale.

And yet, the Packers exited in the preseason in essentially the same place as they were for the first practice of training camp on July 22.

In a league filled with close games, do the Packers have a kicker capable of making a clutch kick?

Carlson declined an interview in the postgame locker room.

Joseph did talk to reporters.

After missing a 44-yarder on his first attempt at the joint practice, he made his final three kicks on Thursday and two more in the game.

How did he not allow one more bad kick into a few more missed kicks?

“One thing goes wrong, oh well, I can’t control it,” Joseph said. “Thank God it’s not life or death. It’s a football going through an upright. If it doesn’t happen, onto the next one, because the next one’s the most important one because I can’t change the past.”

With the door perhaps reopened to making the team, how will Joseph spend the next 72 hours?

“Relaxing,” he said. “I’ve done everything I can. It’s out of my control, so I’m not going to stress over it.”

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