Packers: Mason Crosby Continues to Provide Stability at Kicker

Now entering his 14th NFL season, Mason Crosby continues to provide stability for the Green Bay Packers at the kicker position.

Oftentimes the kicker position is one that just doesn’t get talked about a whole lot. Well, that is unless kicks are being missed. But for the Green Bay Packers who have had Mason Crosby as their kicker since the 2007 season, while there have been a few ups and downs along the way, Crosby has provided them the kind of stability at the kicker position that a majority of NFL teams would be envious of.

Sure Crosby has had the occasional bad season or gone through rough stretches, but over a 13-year career and at a position as fickle as kicker is, that’s bound to happen.

In 2012 we saw Crosby have the worst year of his career as he’d hit just 63.6 percent of his kicks on 33 attempts. Then in 2018, while his percentage sat at 81.1 percent – not awful by any means – we saw Crosby miss several crucial kicks throughout the season.

That year in Week 2 against Minnesota, Crosby would miss a game-winner. Then in Detroit a few weeks later, he’d go 1/5 on field goal attempts and miss his lone extra-point attempt as well. Lastly, in what ended up being Mike McCarthy’s final game as Head Coach, Crosby would miss a game-tying field goal attempt.

After each of these seasons, the Green Bay Packers would bring in competition the following training camp, but as we all know, each time Crosby prevailed with ease and has rewarded both Ted Thompson and Brian Gutekunst for their confidence.

In terms of field goal percentage, Crosby is coming off the best season of his career. He would tie the franchise record by hitting 91.7 percent of his field-goal attempts and hit 40 of 41 extra-point tries. In fact, since the aforementioned debacle in Detroit that was mentioned above, Crosby has been lights out, hitting 41 out of 45 attempts.

Over his career, Crosby has shown that he has the resiliency and mental toughness to bounce back from down performances, which as we’ve seen is not something that every or even most kickers can do, and he’s also made plenty of big kicks over his career. This includes a career field goal percentage in the playoffs of 89.7 percent on 29 attempts.

Not to mention that he’s accustomed to making kicks in the unpredictability of the frigid Green Bay winters.

Although at 35-years-old it’s worth noting that his leg strength isn’t what it used to be, Crosby still finished in the top half of the league in total touchbacks in 2019, and over the last two seasons, he’s hit six of his nine field-goal attempts from over 50 yards.

In what was a contract year last season, Crosby undoubtedly proved that he is still that steady presence that Green Bay has relied on for over a decade. And as a result, he was given a new three-year deal worth $12.9 million according to Spotrac.

You don’t have to scan the NFL landscape very long to realize how difficult it can be to find a reliable kicker and it seems more difficult now than it has been in the past. Heck, just look in the division at Chicago and Minnesota and the struggles that they’ve had in recent years.

But fortunately for the Green Bay Packers, because of Mason Crosby, this is a position that they really haven’t had to worry about since 2007.

All stats via Pro Football Reference