Why mess with do-nothing success?

By acquiring Tremon Smith and trading Trevor Davis, the Green Bay Packers appear to have upgraded the kickoff-return position.

But what does it matter?

The Packers are one of five teams to have happily kept every kickoff in the end zone for a touchback. The result? With the Bears booting one kickoff out of the bounds in the opener, Green Bay’s average field position following a kickoff is the 27.5-yard line. That’s the third-best starting point in the league … for doing nothing.

As a rookie with Kansas City last year, Smith averaged 26.8 yards per kickoff return. Of 28 players with more than 10 runbacks, that ranked sixth in the NFL. That history might make special teams coordinator Shawn Mennenga more willing to let his kickoff-return unit do something other than jog back to the sideline.

“I think it depends on, No. 1, how good is their coverage unit?” Mennenga said on Thursday. “We look at the kicker and where his hit chart is and where we think we can attack them at. And then also, what’s the hang time? Not only how far they kick it but what’s the hang time? If you’re talking a 4-second-plus hang time and you’re 5 yards in the end zone, by the time you get ready to bring it out, they’re already at the 25 or inside the 30-yard line. It can be tough sledding trying to bring it out.”

A lower kickoff, just like a low punt, can provide an opening for the return team. And then, like offense and defense, it’s about matchups. The matchups might work in the Packers’ favor on Sunday against the Broncos. Through the limited sample size of two games, Denver’s kickoff team has allowed a league-worst average starting point of the 30.3-yard line.

“With a guy like Tre, he’s definitely proven he can be a home-run threat,” Mennenga said. “If we feel like we have good matchups, we may tell him to bring it out or deepen him up a little bit. If there’s some things we don’t feel good about as far as our matchup against them, we may say, ‘Let’s try to keep this in unless it’s in front of the goal line.’ It just varies week to week and the matchups and how high the ball’s hanging and how deep it’s going. We’ll game plan that each week.”

Through the first two weeks of the season, 206 of 294 kickoffs have resulted in touchbacks. That’s a touchback rate of 70.1 percent. Denver is one of the other teams to not have a kickoff return this season.