Packers ‘Absolutely’ Committed to Inconsistent Anders Carlson
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Mason Crosby was available during training camp, but the Green Bay Packers were committed to the kicker they had just drafted, Anders Carlson.
Crosby is available again and Carlson is coming off another important miss, but the Packers remain as committed as ever to their rookie kicker.
“Absolutely,” coach Matt LaFleur said on Tuesday, a day after Carlson missed a 45-yard field goal during the fourth quarter of a two-point loss at the New York Giants.
“He’s a young kicker that, obviously, you’ve got to find consistency in your game. I will say this: You miss a field goal and you come back and you hit one in another critical situation that I want to say was 3 yards further, and he hits it right down the pipe.”
After making every kick in his first five games, Carlson has at least one miss in six of the last eight. That includes a missed field goal before halftime in a two-point loss at Denver, a missed extra point that forced the Packers to go for a touchdown during the final moments at Pittsburgh and the fourth-quarter miss at New York that might have forced the Giants to score a touchdown on their final drive.
The bumps in the road were the expectation for a talented kicker who had an up-and-down collegiate career. While there have been key misses, there also have been key makes.
A week before against Kansas City, he lined up for a 48-yarder with 1:09 to play. Make the kick, and the Packers are up eight. Miss the kick, and Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs would start at their 38 with a chance to win.
Carlson split the uprights to cap a night in which he made all three point-after attempts and both field goals.
“He had some opportunities that were advantageous to us, and he came through for us,” special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia said on Friday. “I told him at the beginning of the year, everybody loved you, you were making a lot of kicks. We missed some PATs, nobody likes you anymore, and now we made a couple kicks and everybody likes you again.
“It’s part of the position, right? It’s the consistency of what we’re trying to see in practice hopefully keeps transpiring over to how he plays in the game, and I think that’s what we saw last week. Hopefully, it’ll keep showing up on the positive end of games.”
It didn’t against the Giants, though he did bounce back from the miss by making a 48-yarder with 5:35 to play.
Of 32 kickers who’ve attempted at least 15 field goals, Carlson ranks 24th in field-goal accuracy (80.0 percent) and last on extra points (88.9 percent).
Of the four rookie kickers with at least 15 field-goal attempts, Carlson is second in field goals (San Francisco’s Jake Moody is first at 85.0 percent) and last on extra points (the other three are a combined 91-of-91).
With the Packers clinging to their playoff spot, four big games await, including Sunday against Tampa Bay and the finale against Chicago at Lambeau Field.
Crosby thrived in big moments and in the cold, but Carlson is the future and the future has been and will continue to be now.
“He’s certainly capable. It’s just finding that consistent approach, whatever it may be, for him to go out there and consistently execute,” LaFleur said. “Obviously, those missed, whether it’s PATs or missed field goals, everything gets magnified when you lose. Every phase. That’s kind of where we’re at.”
