Packers Draft Report Card: Grade for Trading Up for Kicker Trey Smack

GREEN BAY – Kicker is the loneliest position in the NFL.

At the same time, it’s one of the most crowded positions for the Green Bay Packers.

Trey Smack is about to find out.

Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst traded his two seventh-round picks to move up to the final pick of the sixth round, No. 216 overall, to select Florida kicker Trey Smack.

“I was kind of hopeful about me getting drafted and it became a surreal moment when it happened,” Smack said during a Zoom call with reporters after he was drafted. “I’m just really excited where I am right now and I couldn’t be happier.”

The Pressure’s On Trey Smack

Kicker is the ultimate pressure cooker. There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide if you miss a field goal. Nobody remembers Brandon McManus’ late-season hot streak last year; everybody remembers how he missed two field goals and one extra point in a four-point loss to the Bears in the playoffs.

“If the guard misses a block and the guy goes for 20 yards, nobody’s on him like if a guy misses a kick,” Gutekunst said.

Talk about a lonely feeling, surrounded by only your thoughts and kicking demons. Coaches love to talk about having a next-play mentality. If the guard misses a block on first down, his next play is second down. If a kicker misses a kick, his next play might not be for an hour. Or a week.

On the other hand, Smack is set to join two veterans – the proven McManus and the rocket-legged Lucas Havrisik – for what could be a months-long battle to determine who will be the team’s Week 1 kicker.

As a sixth-round pick, Smack figures to have a leg up in the competition. Then again, the Packers are a team with Super Bowl aspirations and the best man should win the job.

There’s the pressure that comes with being a draft pick. The pressure to perform during a heated training camp battle. The pressure to make kicks to win playoff games.

“I feel like every kick is pressure,” Smack said. “In college, I played in the SEC, so I played in the biggest stadiums in all of college football. There’s some pressure there. I get nervous for every kick and every opportunity I have to kick, even in practices. It’s just normal to me, and that’s how I handle it. I like to have fun with it. Pressure is fun to me.”

Grading Packers’ Selection of Trey Smack

The frozen elephant in the room is Smack’s lack of cold-weather experience. He tried to downplay it during his Zoom call, saying he was “100 percent” comfortable, only for his example to serve as a frosty word of warning.

“I grew up in Maryland, so it’s not new to me. I’ve always done it,” he said. “It’s how I started out kicking is kicking in cold weather. I kicked a couple years ago during Christmas, like eight years ago, and it was snowing here. I’m pretty used to it but it’s a little different in Gainesville and I got to get back in that cold-weather rhythm I had before.”

Eight years ago is a long time. Moreover, the average high temperature in December in his hometown of Severna Park, Md., is 48. If it was 48 in Green Bay, that would mean hell was freezing over. Really, though, the cold-weather thing shouldn’t matter. Arguably the best kicker in NFL history, Justin Tucker, was born and raised in Texas and played his college ball at Texas.

Florida Gators kicker Trey Smack attempts a field goal against Tennessee. | Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images

The other elephant is Gutekunst’s history. In 2023, he used a sixth-round pick on Anders Carlson, who had a dismal rookie season and was out after one season.

However, one has nothing to do with the other. Smack in three seasons on the job at Florida made 82.8 percent of his field goals and 100-of-101 extra points. He never made less than 80 percent of his field-goal attempts. Carlson in five seasons at Auburn made 71.8 percent of his field goals. He made better than 72.0 percent of his kicks in just one of those seasons.

Smack made 76.9 percent of his field-goal attempts from 50-plus yards. That was better than Carlson’s overall rate.

“I certainly expect all these rookies to come in and have tough times,” Gutekunst said. “That’s part of the National Football League. But I do think what we did to move up to get him, obviously, we think very highly of him, we think he has a very good chance to succeed in this league, but we did with Anders, as well. That’s part of this and we’ll see how it goes.”

As for the grade, kicker is the ultimate pass-fail position. You either make big kicks and help win games or you’ll be looking for a new line of work.

The Packers exited the draft without a No. 2 running back or blocking tight end, and they added only one offensive linemen. An argument could be made that there's better use of draft capital than trading two picks for a kicker.

I’d argue the Patriots might not be a dynasty without Adam Vinatieri and the Packers might have made deeper playoff runs if not for missed field goals by Carlson in 2023 and McManus in 2025. As is the case at quarterback, it doesn’t matter how you get the kicker. You just have to get a good one.

Grade: B-plus.

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