Green Bay Packers: Missed Field Goals Not All On Mason Crosby

The Green Bay Packers field goal unit, specifically Mason Crosby, is what many are going to remember from Sunday’s game in Cincinnati—and understandably so.

Crosby finished the game with a missed extra point and three missed field goal attempts, all of which would have given the Packers the lead or the win late in the game.

But there is a deeper, and much greater underlying issue with the Green Bay Packers field goal unit than saying Crosby just had a bad day.

We’ve discussed this before, but If we go back a few weeks to the San Francisco game, Crosby’s game-winner was nearly blocked, and by nearly, I mean it was within inches.

The following week against Pittsburgh, there was the blocked field goal attempt that was returned for a touchdown that would have turned the tide of the game had it not been overturned by an offsides call. There were other close calls that game as well.

What opponents are doing is overloading the right side (from the Packers’ perspective) of the field goal unit, forcing Robert Tonyan or Tyler Lancaster to have to block two defenders—a nearly impossible task. All he can really do is try to chip one, hopefully slowing him down, and take on the other.

If done successfully, there should be plenty of time for Crosby to kick the ball. On top of that, there have just simply been some missed blocks and poor gap integrity by the Green Bay blockers.

Last week, reporters asked special teams coach Maurice Drayton about these issues and he made everyone aware that they had been addressed and resolved:

"“We do realize we’ve had some things going on,” Drayton said via Sports Illustrated. “Obviously, I’ll take full responsibility for that. Should have made some in-game adjustments and we did not do it fast enough. But isn’t it awesome when things can occur and guys are able to see it and it actually didn’t hurt you? It was a teachable moment, a learnable moment for everyone on that unit, so it was kind of an ‘ah’ moment, where the guys were like, ‘Wow. This is what coach was talking about.’ And it’s fixed.”"

Unfortunately, against the Bengals, this issue didn’t appear to be fixed at all. And in fact, it may have contributed to Crosby’s issues on his kicking attempts.

When meeting with reporters on Monday, Matt LaFleur was very clear that the field goal blunders didn’t all fall squarely on Crosby‘s shoulders. Although he would not specify what he meant by that, the screenshot below gives us the likely answer.

Cincinnati was able to regularly contest the Green Bay Packers field goal attempts by applying pressure from the right side—just as the Niners and Steelers did. It was a particularly poor performance by Lancaster, who was the blocker on the far right side of the formation.

If you’re Crosby in this situation, it would be natural for him to miss left as a way of trying to avoid the opponent—even if that thought takes place subconsciously. It’s not a coincidence that all four of his missed kicks were to the left.

What started out as an error has now become a full-blown problem for this Green Bay Packers field goal unit and something that opponents are exploiting and will continue to exploit unless something changes.

Green Bay is very fortunate that they didn’t lose on Sunday in Cincinnati and they were also within inches of losing in San Francisco because of an almost blocked kick as well. If this continues, at some point it’s going to cost them a game.