Crosby Will Kick for Packers vs. Lions

The Green Bay Packers will face the Detroit Lions on Sunday with a trip to the playoffs on the line. No practice squad elevations were made on Saturday.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – With a mostly healthy roster, the Green Bay Packers are sticking with their 53-man roster and did not elevate anyone from the practice squad for Sunday night’s game against the Detroit Lions.

Among the roster moves the Packers did not make by the 3 p.m. deadline:

K Matt Ammendola: Last week, the Packers elevated kicker Ramiz Ahmed from the practice squad in hopes that his strong leg could help contain Minnesota’s powerful kickoff-return unit. Ahmed wound up getting hurt during pregame and didn’t play.

In response, the Packers signed Ammendola to the practice squad this week. Ammendola is a proven commodity. As a rookie with the Jets last year and in two games apiece for the Chiefs and Cardinals this season, he booted 66.1 percent of his kickoffs for touchbacks.

So, Mason Crosby handled kickoffs for that game and will again on Sunday. He is last in the NFL in touchback percentage (20.3 percent) and net kickoff average.

Like the Vikings, the Lions have a quality kickoff returner in Justin Jackson. If he had enough returns to quality, his 26.9-yard average would trail only Green Bay’s Keisean Nixon.

“Once our offense and defense gets their 22 or 23 guys, we look at what else is left that we think can help us on the kicking game,” special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia said on Thursday. “We thought going into that particular game that Ramiz could be of help to us. We thought a good return team, we thought they had a good returner, which they do, and we felt it would help us a little bit to do some different things on kickoff.”

DT Chris Slayton: The Packers went with only four defensive linemen last week, putting rookie seventh-round pick Jonathan Ford on the inactives list and not elevating Slayton from the practice squad. The Lions have more of a run-centric offense than the Vikings, so perhaps Ford will make his NFL debut after being inactive for each of the first 16 games.

RB Tyler Goodson: The Packers elevated the undrafted rookie for the first time last week, only to make him inactive on Sunday. Presumably, Goodson would have been an option on kickoff return had Keisean Nixon been inactive due to his groin injury. But, Nixon was active – and will be again this week.

La’Darius Hamilton: Hamilton has been up twice as the fourth outside linebacker, beating out 2020 seventh-rounder Jonathan Garvin twice for a spot on the gameday roster. On Sunday, Green Bay will roll Preston Smith and Kingsley Enagbare as the starters and Justin Hollins and Garvin as the depth.

The Packers had only one player, tight end Josiah Deguara, on their final injury report of the week.

More on Packers vs. Lions

#Packers QB Aaron Rodgers thinks the #Lions are a laughingstock.

That was clear at his locker this week.

“They’ve been playing really good football – as good as just about anybody in the league the last nine weeks.”

Ouch.https://t.co/KcWnmWVN84

— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) January 6, 2023

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