<\/p>\n
Green Bay Packers place kicker Trey Smack kicks with Daniel Whelan holding a preseason NFL football game against the Arizona Cardinals Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, in Green Bay, Wis.<\/p>\n
Matt Ludtke\/AP Photo\/Matt Ludtke<\/p>\n
Green Bay Packers place kicker Trey Smack kicks a field goal during the first half of a preseason NFL football game against the Arizona Cardinals Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, in Green Bay, Wis.<\/p>\n
Abbie Parr\/AP Photo\/Abbie Parr<\/p>\n
Arizona Cardinals place kicker Chad Ryland kicks a field goal during the first half of a preseason NFL football game against the Green Bay Packers Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, in Green Bay, Wis.<\/p>\n
Abbie Parr\/AP Photo\/Abbie Parr<\/p>\n
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) \u2014 Green Bay Packers rookie Trey Smack\u2019s preseason performance indicates he has what it takes to stick around for several years with the team that just drafted him.<\/p>\n
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But the sixth-round pick from Florida must buck history to do it. There\u2019s perhaps no other position with less of a correlation between a player\u2019s draft status and his long-term success.<\/p>\n
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Just three of the 16 kickers drafted from 2016-23 stayed with their original teams for at least three full seasons. The only one who remains with the team that selected him is Cincinnati\u2019s Evan McPherson, a 2021 fifth-round pick from Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith all players coming into the National Football League, it takes a little time,\u201d Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said. \u201cAt the other positions \u2026 you have probably a little more grace period to develop. Whereas as a kicker, you don\u2019t. So you see a lot of those guys bounce around before they catch on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, plenty of those kickers who got drafted from 2016-23 have enjoyed productive NFL careers. Kansas City\u2019s Harrison Butker is a three-time Super Bowl champion. Philadelphia\u2019s Jake Elliott was on two Super Bowl-winning teams and made a Pro Bowl. Daniel Carlson earned All-Pro honors for Las Vegas in 2022.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n They found success only after switching teams.<\/p>\n Butker lost a training camp battle in Carolina and Elliott did the same in Cincinnati before they landed in their current spots. Carlson played just two games for Minnesota in 2018 before getting cut.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a weird phenomenon,\u201d former Packers kicker Mason Crosby said. \u201cBut I do feel like coming out of college, adjusting to the NFL, the ball, the timing, the speed of the game, all the pressure \u2014 all of those things \u2014 it just doesn\u2019t always work out in that first run.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Crosby is an exception. He spent 16 years with Green Bay and became the Packers\u2019 all-time leading scorer after they selected him out of Colorado in the sixth round of the 2007 draft.<\/p>\n But he understands why other drafted kickers haven\u2019t had that kind of staying power. One major reason is the ball itself.<\/p>\n Adjusting to how the NFL differs from the NCAA<\/p>\n The NCAA and NFL don’t have the same size requirements for their footballs. That caused a tough transition for Arizona Cardinals kicker Chad Ryland, who went to the New England Patriots in the fourth round of the 2023 draft but was cut a year later.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cA college ball\u2019s a little bit smaller than the NFL ball, so with that come different factors in how the wind affects the movement of the ball, how mis-hits work,\u201d Ryland said. \u201cYou can\u2019t quite get away with as much with the NFL ball, which is why becoming a good ball striker is such a high valued thing in the NFL. It\u2019s not just having a big leg.\u201d<\/p>\n The hash marks also are positioned differently. They\u2019re 40 feet apart in college. In the NFL, they\u2019re separated by 18\u00bd feet, matching the distance between the uprights.<\/p>\n Crosby says that forces NFL kickers to adjust to subtler and trickier angles.<\/p>\n \u201cThink of a golf course,\u201d said Crosby, who now hosts a show on the Wisconsin Sports Radio Network. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got a hard dogleg left, you can cut over the trees. That angle seems simpler than whenever it\u2019s just a slight, subtle dogleg, and you have to try that little perfect-angled shot to get in prime position.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n In the NFL, the games also are tighter. According to Sportradar, NFL games last year had an average margin of 11.2 points last year, compared to 16.4 points for college games featuring two FBS opponents.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s that first just like initial shock of like how serious this is and how close games are,\u201d said Las Vegas kicker Matt Gay, who lasted just one season in Tampa Bay after the Buccaneers selected him in the fifth round of the 2019 draft. \u201cAnd I think it just takes a second to get your feet wet, get a little comfortable. I think those expectations with the team that drafts you, you feel it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then almost like once you get released or go somewhere else, it\u2019s like you can kind of decompress a little bit and it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, what just happened?\u2019 And guys find their feet on that next team.\u201d<\/p>\n NFL accuracy rate leaves no room for error<\/p>\n Veteran kickers also have become so proficient that anyone breaking into the league can\u2019t afford to start slowly.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Sportradar says NFL kickers made 85.6% of their field-goal attempts last season, including 84.3% from 40-49 yards out and 68.8% from at least 50 yards. FBS kickers made 76.6% of their field goals, including 67% from 40-48 yards and just 51.8% from at least 50.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a new environment,\u201d Smack said. \u201cYou haven\u2019t been there before. You don\u2019t know what to expect. As young kickers, we try to resolve the equation of how to kick in the NFL and we think of it as different, since we did well in college, now we\u2019re at a whole new level where everybody\u2019s the best of the best in the NFL. How can we get better? This is one of the positions where it\u2019s kind of like, you don\u2019t need to get better. You just need to swing your swing and trust your process.\u201d<\/p>\n There are indications this trend could be changing.<\/p>\n Four of the five kickers drafted from 2024-25 remain with their original teams, though the Los Angeles Rams cut 2024 sixth-round pick Joshua Karty last November. That group includes 2025 All-Pro Will Reichard of Minnesota.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Smack, the only kicker drafted this year, went 9 of 9 on preseason field-goal attempts and made three from at least 50 yards, with a long of 59. The Packers want him to stabilize their kicking situation, which has been a problem ever since they moved on from Crosby.<\/p>\n Anders Carlson, a 2023 sixth-round pick, lasted one season. Brayden Narveson opened 2024 as the Packers\u2019 main kicker but stayed for just six games before giving way to Brandon McManus. The Packers are switching kickers again after McManus missed two field goals and an extra-point attempt in a 31-27 playoff loss at Chicago.<\/p>\n \u201cHopefully, we can have some patience,\u201d Gutekunst said. \u201cI stood up here and told you I always envied (former Packers general manager) Ted (Thompson) because he had a lot of patience with Mason as he was going through the things that he went through early and late in the middle of his career. He just, he had a conviction there, and we certainly do with Trey as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n AP sports writers Mark Anderson, David Brandt and Kyle Hightower contributed to this report.<\/p>\n See AP\u2019s full NFL coverage here<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Green Bay Packers place kicker Trey Smack kicks with Daniel Whelan holding a preseason NFL football game against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":988985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9927,15095,9741,2945,20312,8726,9026,380,7,13349,22829,25087,1745,6434,6,15,129844,27878,27876,115748,83965,27877,96633,18686],"class_list":["post-988984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-draft","tag-anders-carlson","tag-brandon-mcmanus","tag-brayden-narveson","tag-brian-gutekunst","tag-chad-ryland","tag-daniel-carlson","tag-evan-mcpherson","tag-florida","tag-football","tag-harrison-butker","tag-jake-elliott","tag-joshua-karty","tag-mason-crosby","tag-matt-gay","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-draft","tag-nfl-kickers-trey-smack","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40774-ap-arizona-sports-only","tag-product-40780-ap-florida-sports-only","tag-product-40806-ap-ohio-sports-only","tag-product-40822-ap-wisconsin-sports-only","tag-trey-smack"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/988985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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