Packer Central

Family Night Could Be Biggest Practice of Carlson’s Life

After a rough start to training camp, all eyes will be rookie Anders Carlson during the Green Bay Packers' Family Night practice on Saturday.

Bill Huber

Family Night Could Be Biggest Practice of Carlson’s Life
Family Night Could Be Biggest Practice of Carlson’s Life /
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – One excellent performance doesn’t pave a path to greatness. One bad performance, however, can lead to a highway to hell.

In 1997, the Green Bay Packers chose not to re-sign Super Bowl-champion kicker Chris Jacke. Instead, in the third round of the NFL Draft, they used a third-round pick on Penn State kicker Brett Conway.

Conway’s career went to hell on July 31, 1997. In the Packers’ second preseason game, against the New England Patriots at Lambeau Field, Conway missed all three field-goal attempts from the not-so-long distances of 32, 40 and 44 yards.

He never recovered. The Packers moved onto Ryan Longwell and never looked back.

Baseball, as the legendary Yogi Berra famously said, is “90 percent mental and the other half is physical.” The same is true with kicking. It takes talent to blast a ball between the uprights but it’s the mental toughness that separates the big legs – and Carlson certainly has one – from the big-time success stories.

After the debacle against New England, Conway kicked and kicked and kicked but couldn’t get out of a rut. He wound up spending his rookie season on injured reserve due to a fatigue-related injury to his quad.

“The next week I probably kicked twice as many balls (in practice) as I should have,” Conway said a year later. “The next game out in Oakland, I was real fired up … going to redeem myself … wasn’t going to miss. Then right at the end of my warmup is when I pulled it.”

In what’s only a bit of a parallel at the moment, the Packers this offseason chose not to re-sign the franchise’s career scoring leader, Mason Crosby. Instead, in the sixth round of the draft, they selected Auburn kicker Anders Carlson.

Carlson struggled with accuracy in college and has struggled with accuracy in Green Bay during these early stages of training camp. He’s kicked four times, making 16-of-27 attempts. That’s 59.2 percent – an abysmal number. For context, an NFL kicker hasn’t made less than 60 percent of his field-goal attempts (minimum 16 attempts) since 2007. After going 5-of-6 during his first performance of camp, he’s 11-of-21.

“No concerns right now,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said on Friday. “I do think it’s one of those things that this is the National Football League. You’ve got to perform at every position. At the same time, we went into this kind of knowing that rookie kickers will have some struggles, with the thought process there will be some patience there.”

While it’s true Carlson hasn’t attempted a kick of shorter than 40 yards to bolster those numbers, he also hasn’t had to attempt a kick under the stresses of a real game.

That pressure will come on Saturday night in the form of about 60,000 fans at Lambeau Field. All eyes will be on Carlson. There will be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. If he goes 2-for-7, like he did one day last week, the pressure will be ratcheted up several times.

Carlson doesn’t have to have a great night, though it wouldn’t hurt. He just needs to avoid a Conway-style disaster. Speaking to reporters after Thursday’s practice, Carlson’s confidence seemed intact despite the trying start. He missed two attempts on Tuesday and two more on Thursday. All four of those misses were wide right, which has allowed him to do some self-coaching.

Anders Carlson
Anders Carlson pedals his way to training camp. (Photo by Sarah Kloepping/USA Today Sports Images)

“It’s really just getting my hips through a little bit better,” he said. “I think I’m striking the ball well, and I’m glad it’s just one miss I can correct and get back on track.”

Of course, as former special teams coordinator Ron Zook was fond of saying, you don’t get second and third down on special teams.

“In a game it’s one shot, one kill,” Carlson said. “We were just talking about that. I’ve got to put a better emphasis on it.”

Carlson’s struggles aren’t unexpected. In fact, they were predicted by Jamie Kohl, the esteemed specialists coach who mentored every kicker and punter selected in this year’s draft. The key, Kohl said, is how Carlson will respond.

“When they’re out there and the whole world is watching and it’s just them and they have to perform, that’s going to come down to who that individual is as a person,” Kohl told Packer Central. “Sometimes, experiencing crap can help you become a better player if you can make it through the storm.

“When the NFL monster comes to you, how are you going to handle a negative performance? Some people will bounce back and do better and get better and thrive, and others will allow the voices to continue to multiply and then they get eaten up and they’re out of a job. It’s going to take some time. If he can make it through the early storm, he’s got a chance to be a really good player. Really good player.”

Carlson said he hasn’t kicked in Lambeau, the stadium that delivered a quick end to brother Daniel's time with the Vikings. It will be a nice night with only a light wind, so the conditions shouldn’t be too challenging for his debut. 

While it’s far too early to be pounding on the panic button and getting Crosby on the next flight to Green Bay, it’s time to start making kicks or else his run as the only kicker on the roster might be coming to an end.

“It’s what you play for,” Carlson said of what’s coming up on Saturday night. “I know it’s not a real game, but getting out in front of your family, your friends and especially the fans, and showcasing your talents. I like to entertain, so it’s good to be out there. Then again, practices, whether they’re open or closed, to me it’s the same. Obviously, you see the fans, you know there’s people watching, but once you get in the zone, it’s just you, the holder and the snap of the ball.”

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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