Green Bay Packers Tough Decisions: Mason Crosby

Coming off a bad season and with a big cap number, moving on from Mason Crosby seems like a simple decision. But is it so simple?

GREEN BAY, Wis. – A key offseason is here for the Green Bay Packers. The decisions that general manager Brian Gutekunst makes in the next five weeks to navigate through a $50 million hole in the salary cap will determine whether the Packers will contend for a Super Bowl in 2022.

This series of stories focuses on the critical decisions that lie ahead. Part 3 focuses on kicker Mason Crosby.

K Mason Crosby: 2022 Status – Under Contract

From a bottom-line perspective, this is an easy one. Crosby is entering his final season under contract with a cap number of $4.735 million that will rank seventh among kickers. He is coming off a dismal season in which his 73.5 percent success rate on field goals ranked next-to-last among kickers with at least 20 attempts.

Moreover, the Packers kept JJ Molson on the practice squad all year. He had a good training camp and showed a powerful leg with a 60-yard field goal at practice. So, it’s almost as if Gutekunst has planned ahead.

Not so fast, though.

In 2012, Crosby was a woeful 21-of-33 on field goals, his 63.6 percent accuracy was the worst in the league. The following offseason, Crosby accepted an incentives-filled restructure. That set the stage for the second act of his career.

In 2013, he rebounded by making what was a career-best 89.2 percent of his field goals. Crosby continued to reward the team for its faith by hitting 81.8 percent in 2014, 85.7 percent in 2015, 86.7 percent in 2016, 78.9 percent in 2017, 81.1 percent in 2018, 91.7 percent in 2019 and 100.0 percent in 2020.

The wheels obviously came off after a hot start to the 2021 season. An end-of-camp change at holder, early-season problems with protection and a midseason change at snapper all conspired against Crosby. He’d never admit it, but all the disarray perhaps messed with his head. Similar to Yogi Berra’s phrase about hitting, kicking is 90 percent mental and the other half is physical. Rather than being 100 percent focused on his job, Crosby perhaps lined up wondering if the snap would be accurate, the hold would be true and the protection would be strong.

“It’s frustrating,” Crosby said in November. “If it wasn't my job and I wasn't in the middle of it, you'd almost kind of be like, ‘Man, just everything that could’ve gone wrong in a few of these situations kind of did.’ For me, it's that. You just have to flush it and move on. I look at every situation, every kick in the game as a one-and-done. You reload and you go to the next.”

Crosby returned to form late in the season. During the four games before the finale at Detroit, Crosby made all 24 kicks. Most of them were short, but he made them. That hot streak was broken against the Lions, and Crosby didn’t have a prayer of avoiding the blocked field goal in the playoff loss to San Francisco.

At age 37, his leg isn’t what it once was but he’s still got some power. Crosby made 3-of-4 field goals from 50-plus yards, including two during the thrilling Week 3 victory at San Francisco. His average kickoff went 64.1 yards, the longest of his career. While his touchback percentage ranked only 22nd, his kickoffs helped pin the receiving team inside its 20-yard line 10.6 percent of the time. That, believe it or not considering the special teams’ struggles, ranked ninth in the league.

Tasked with changing the results and culture on special teams, will new coordinator Rich Bisaccia want to roll with an untested kicker – whether it’s Molson or some other young gun that emerges from a presumptive kicking competition? Or will Gutekunst convince Crosby to do what he did nine years ago and take a restructured deal in hopes that history repeats itself?

Grading the Specialists

K Mason Crosby ($3.16 million cap charge; ranking No. 10 among kickers)

Crosby missed two field goals in 2019. He didn’t miss any in 2020. His red-hot kicking continued into the season at San Francisco in Week 3 with a 54-yarder in the first quarter and a 51-yarder to win the game.

But, with changes in the snapper-holder operation, Crosby went into a funk. He missed kicks because of bad snaps, holds and protection. When the operation improved, Crosby did not. Among kickers with at least 20 field-goal attempts, his 73.5 percent success rate was next-to-last in the league. Only his 2012 season was worse from an accuracy perspective. Due in part to age and late-season games in the cold, his touchback percentage on kickoffs ranked seventh from the bottom.

A restructured contract cut Crosby’s cap charge for 2021 but bumped it to $4.375 million for 2022. The Packers could move on and save $2.395 million for next season but incur dead-money charges through 2025. He’ll turn 38 just before the start of the season.

Grade: F.

P Corey Bojorquez ($1.02 million cap charge; ranking No. 19 among punters)

Acquired in a trade with the Rams after final cuts, Bojorquez ranked 11th with a 46.5-yard average and 17th with a 40.0-yard net average. His 82-yard punt at Chicago gave him the NFL’s longest punt for a second consecutive season. He had 18 punts inside the 20 with four touchbacks. Those were all improvements over the man he replaced, 2018 fifth-round pick JK Scott.

Still, his season seems like a disappointment because of how it ended. Starting with Week 6 at Chicago through Week 11 at Minnesota, Bojorquez had six consecutive games with net averages of at least 45.7 yards. In Week 12 against the Rams, he had a net average of only 39.8 yards because he had three punts inside the 20. It was a punting clinic. It all went off the rails in Week 14 against Chicago, with a four-game stretch with nets of 10.0, 42.0, 41.8 and 21.5 yards. Too many kicks either went straight down the middle of the field or were shanked out of bounds.

Punting is only part of the job. He’s also got to be a flawless holder for Crosby. There were some real struggles, though he was pretty solid down the stretch aside from a dropped hold in the bitter cold against Minnesota in Week 17.

Bojorquez will be an unrestricted free agent this coming offseason. With a league-best 50.8 average in 2020 and his mostly solid performance in 2021, he probably won’t be cheap.

Grade: C.

LS Steven Wirtel ($366,667 cap charge; ranking No. 33 among long snappers)

The Packers at midseason finally parted ways with 2018 seventh-round pick Hunter Bradley. Bradley was consistently inconsistent during his three-plus seasons but Wirtel wasn’t appreciably better. His snaps were never truly awful but the best snappers can spin it so perfectly that the holder doesn’t need to adjust the ball. He lacked that kind of precision. Wirtel got steam-rolled on the fateful blocked punt that doomed Green Bay in the playoff game.

Take them for what they’re worth, but Pro Football Focus grades long snappers. Bradley was the fourth-worst in the league and Wirtel was the third-worst.

The Packers don’t really have a problem finding long snappers. They’ve actually done well in that regard. They just have an impossible time in realizing they’ve found them. Five former Packers were full-time snappers this season. The Packers drafted Clark Harris (Bengals) in 2007, and signed J.J. Jansen (Panthers) in 2008, Rick Lovato (Eagles) in 2015, Taybor Pepper (49ers) twice in 2017 and Zach Triner (Buccaneers) in 2017 and training camp in 2018.

Grade: D.

More Tough Decisions

WR Allen Lazard

S Adrian Amos, RT Billy Turner, DT Dean Lowry, WR Randall Cobb