Packers Add to Kicking Battle with ‘Das Boot’
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GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers will have a kicking competition. And it might not involve veteran Mason Crosby.
The Packers on Tuesday signed Dominik Eberle, a record-setting former teammate of Jordan Love at Utah State and a native of Nuremberg, Germany. Eberle, who was coached by new Packers special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia with the Raiders, joins Crosby and JJ Molson on the roster.
Eberle set seven Mountain West Conference records at Utah State, where he combined a big leg with accuracy. The accuracy: He made all 167 extra points in his career (one of his MWC records) and 21-of-24 field goals as a senior. The leg: He made four field goals from 50-plus yards, including a conference-record three 51-yarders in one game vs. New Mexico State.
“He’s prepared for those moments,” Utah State coach Gary Andersen said before the 2020 draft. “He’s trained. He’s been through a lot of football games. He knows how to keep himself in the moment. It can happen at any time.”
Eberle went undrafted but did enough to stick on the Raiders’ practice squad for his rookie season. In 2021, he spent time on the practice squads of the Panthers and Texans. In Week 16, he made his NFL debut as a COVID-19 replacement for Houston against the Chargers. He made 2-of-3 field goals, including a 51-yarder, and all five extra points.
Eberle moved to the United States when he was 14. A promising young striker who loved watching Thierry Henry, Eberle attended some German national camps. Coming back from one of those, he learned the family was moving to California.
“I was kind of shocked at first,” he told Deseret.com of his family’s sudden relocation. “But I still had the dream of being a professional soccer player in the U.S. Then one of my best friends suggested, ‘Hey, maybe you should start kicking a football. It’s a lot of fun, and maybe you could make a living out of it one day.’
“So, I started playing. It was a lot of fun, and I fell in love with it and just kept pursuing it.”
Having grown up playing soccer, he quickly took to his new game.
“I mean I could kick the ball 50 yards but I’d make it once out of every 15 tries or so,” Eberle told the Utah State Statesman. “But once I got into my junior year, that’s when the consistency really started showing up and not only on kickoffs, but on field goals. And that’s kind of when I had an idea that I might be able to go somewhere.”
He was a walk-on at Utah State who paid the bills by working as a waiter until being put on scholarship. He went by the nickname “Das Boot.”
“At any time, I’m ready to go out on the field, kick, and do what I love,” he said. “At the same time, I know that I’m in a position to help the next generation of Germans fulfill their goals of football, and I covet the role of being a spokesperson for football in Germany. I’d cherish any role of growing the sport back home when it’s all said and done for me, but for now, I love to kick. I’m prepared to kick. I’m ready to kick.”
As for Crosby, he missed two field goals in 2019 and zero in 2020 but finished next-to-last with a 73.5 percent success rate in 2021. The team has major cap issues and moving on from Crosby – the team’s all-time scoring leader and kicker since 2007 – would save almost $2.4 million. He’ll turn 38 before the start of next season.
