Best of the Packers: Top 10 kickers, punters since 1960
By Phil Watson
1. Ryan Longwell (1997-2005)
The Green Bay Packers were in the market for a kicker in 1997 and gave former California punter/kicker Ryan Longwell a shot after picking him up off waivers from the San Francisco 49ers.
That waiver claim of an undrafted free agent turned out to be the guy doing the kicking in Green Bay for almost the next decade.
Longwell made more than 80 percent of his field goal attempts in seven of his nine seasons with the Packers, including 23-of-26 (88.5 percent) in 2003.
For his Packer career, Longwell made 226-of-277 field goal tries (81.6 percent) and made all but four of his 380 PATs.
His 226 field goals are a career franchise record and he is the only kicker in club history with a better than 80 percent accuracy rate—81.6 percent—with at least 75 attempts.
Longwell also shares the single-season club record of 33 field goals in 2000, tied with Chester Marcol and Mason Crosby. Longwell is also sixth with 29 field goals in 1998 and seventh with 28 successful tries in 2002.
He has five entries among the top-10 single-season marks for field goal accuracy—third with 88.5 percent in 2003, fourth with 87.9 percent in 1998, fifth with 86.8 percent in 2000, tied for sixth with 85.7 percent in 2004 and 10th with 83.3 percent in 1999.
Longwell signed as a free agent with the Minnesota Vikings in 2006 and kicked there for six seasons. After signing briefly with the Seattle Seahawks, but not playing in a game in 2012, Longwell retired as a Packer in August 2013.
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