Packers Huddle

RingoCStarrQB wrote: ↑

19 Aug 2023 06:57

I rather have Tooth Bustleg.

Now getting a kick out of our kicker. Let's see how the 2nd half goes.

52 yards and kicked it out of the endzone.

Go for 2 every time and all is well.

TheSkeptic wrote: ↑

20 Aug 2023 01:02

52 yards and kicked it out of the endzone.

Go for 2 every time and all is well.

Now that's the Packer fan spirit! Awesome. In Carlson We Trust. GO PACK GO!

Awful quiet on the "replace that bum" front today...

APB wrote: ↑

20 Aug 2023 14:04

Awful quiet on the "replace that bum" front today...

Need to stack successes! Bring it the next 3 weeks.

Pckfn23 wrote: ↑

18 Aug 2023 15:02

Yeah, you could obviously get way better statistics for any kicker by just ignoring all of their misses, but in Crosby's case, certain misses should be disregarded because he tended to miss a lot in short stretches before recovering completely, whereas with other kickers, they either 1) don't have a good FG percentage in general; or 2) when they start sucking they never really recover. And in both of those cases, they tend to randomly miss high pressure kicks at inopportune times, whereas Crosby never really did because his sucking was concentrated and anything but random.

This is just not really the case...

Crosby did not just miss a lot in short stretches. His first 4 seasons he missed a total of 30 FGs and was under 80%. Those are bad years. He had a good 2011, but then an atrocious 212. 2013 was really good, 2014 was not good, 2015 & 2016 were decent. Then an ok 2017, an ok 2018, and 2 great seasons in 2019 and 2020. 2021 again awful. 2022 decent. He had a lot of bad years where he just missed consistently throughout the year with some really really awful games. 2012 he missed in 9 of the 13 games he kicked in. 2014 it was 6 of the 14 games. 2018 was the result of 1 bad game. 2021 was 6 of the 16 games with a miss.

He wasn't any different than most kickers.

Most kickers who have been around a handful seasons or more have a better percentage than Crosby: https://stathead.com/tiny/Pnmw7

There are ALOT of kickers who suck, are cut, and then recover with a new team. The one thing different about Crosby is that he was not cut.

Crosby absolutely did miss high pressure kicks, it was only in the last 3-4 years were he was almost automatic at them.

I could see it being the case that there are a fair amount of kickers who go through a rough patch, are cut (and thus this is what registers in my mind), and then they quietly resurface later with another team and don't have any major issues to speak of again.

Likewise, I could understand if my opinion of him suffers from recency bias and that his first few years really weren't all that great. Although my general recollection of Crosby has been that his misses not falling under my first 2 categories were generally pretty tough kicks that any kicker besides Tucker would have struggled with.

But that being said, if you remove the kicks I argued that we should remove, Crosby immediately turns into one of the better kickers, and then if you account for the fact that he kicked in Green Bay and also never really missed any major clutch kicks during important games, I would have him in the top 10 or even 5 of the past 15 years.

Stats can be useful (as in this case, since they show me that Crosby was possibly a little worse early on that I remember him being), but one "eye test" argument that absolutely applies here is that, given all of our notable playoff and big game struggles over the course of 15 years, how often was the narrative that we lost because Crosby choked or missed a kick? Pretty much never, and if he were as pedestrian as people here are claiming, you would think this narrative would have come up at one point or another throughout our excessive list of letdowns in the Rodgers era. So that tells me he didn't miss any such kicks or if he did, they were sufficiently difficult that in the moment, nobody reasonable was blaming Crosby.

I looked at that list you posted earlier in the thread of missed kicks in the 4th quarter or OT where we were within 0 and -3 points of our opponent, and what it largely showed me was what I remember: a bunch in that Bengals game, and then a handful of such kicks in midseason games that ultimately didn't really matter (and Crosby going several years in a row not missing any at all, multiple times).

APB wrote: ↑

20 Aug 2023 14:04

Awful quiet on the "replace that bum" front today...

He had a nice game, and I am willing to give.the kid.achance. especially in preseason.and blowouts.

I will give you that Crosby was extraordinarily good in the playoffs.

texas wrote: ↑

21 Aug 2023 17:19

APB wrote: ↑

20 Aug 2023 14:04

Awful quiet on the "replace that bum" front today...

He had a nice game, and I am willing to give.the kid.achance. especially in preseason.and blowouts.

Well, I suppose that by December enough guys will be on IR or proved themselves to be expendable so the Packers could resign Crosby to kick extra points and any FG's under 35 yards in the playoffs - if the Packers might make the playoffs. 2 kickers on the roster are not impossible. But you can't be having the opposing team catching kickoffs at the 15 yard line and Crosby has maybe a 5% chance of kicking a 45 yard FG in GB in December or later.

Pckfn23 wrote: ↑

22 Aug 2023 19:49

We need a Doink emoji.

Gite says Carlson is fine. So there is nothing to worry about.

This guy is gonna cost us 2 games minimum

Drj820 wrote: ↑

22 Aug 2023 22:27

This guy is gonna cost us 2 games minimum

And I really don't think they care about that this year. This season has the feel of seeing what they have, and what they can build toward next season.

If it pops off this year, great. But they are young and are going to hit snags. If certain guys check out and make jumps, 2024/25 are the real target years to win.

paco wrote: ↑

22 Aug 2023 22:34

Drj820 wrote: ↑

22 Aug 2023 22:27

This guy is gonna cost us 2 games minimum

And I really don't think they care about that this year. This season has the feel of seeing what they have, and what they can build toward next season.

If it pops off this year, great. But they are young and are going to hit snags. If certain guys check out and make jumps, 2024/25 are the real target years to win.

Bingo.

I think they see a kid with a big leg who has some fixable technical issues. If it takes a season to work through those issues then so be it.

It's apparent the org is willing to use this season as a growth year for not only the kicker, but a number of other positions. Whatever success they see this year will only serve to benefit future years when the real championship runs ensue.

Drj820 wrote: ↑

22 Aug 2023 22:27

This guy is gonna cost us 2 games minimum

The defense might be able to cover for erratic field goal and extra point kicking. I hope our punter, long snapper and coverage teams are flawless though. We'll need execution in all 3 phases.

paco wrote: ↑

22 Aug 2023 22:34

Drj820 wrote: ↑

22 Aug 2023 22:27

This guy is gonna cost us 2 games minimum

And I really don't think they care about that this year. This season has the feel of seeing what they have, and what they can build toward next season.

If it pops off this year, great. But they are young and are going to hit snags. If certain guys check out and make jumps, 2024/25 are the real target years to win.

I get that this is probably the approach, but I vehemently disagree with it. I want us to make a playoff push, and two games could be the difference between making it or missing it. Last year, we missed by one game. I am not okay with that.

And to the folks that say "well you can complain all you want but it won't change anything" ... I may not be able to change it, but I can contribute to the discourse around this team, and public discourse IMO is a factor in an organization's broader culture. I don't think it's a very big factor, like I don't think it will push the FO hard in any direction, but I do think it's a factor, like it's a thing that can seep into the thinking of those in charge.

And among the ideas I want to seep in... we should play for playoffs even when the team is young and in a transition year, because playoff experience is a valuable thing to have while creating a championship window; that this should not be sacrificed for taking lumps with a developmental project at PK, and that "developing" at all a kicker is a stupid idea (as someone that tends to favor trying to develop guys with lots of raw talent who weren't anything great in college, at K it's just dumb), and that there's nothing wrong with rotating through stopgap mid starters at K until we find a guy who can be both an upgrade and better long-term.

In truth, I wonder in retrospect if the fandom viewing Crosby as a good kicker (when, upon looking at the numbers, he was actually sub-par) led us here. I really think the FO sees this as just like how we brought along Crosby.