Green Bay Packers Cut ’em or Keep ’em & Prediction: Mason Crosby
By Paul Bretl
Next up in my Cut ’em or Keep ’em & Prediction series for the Green Bay Packers is kicker Mason Crosby.
For those turning in for the first time, as I’m sure you are aware, the Green Bay Packers face some difficult financial decisions this offseason as they find themselves $50.79 million over the projected salary cap, according to Over the Cap. And with that, there could be some veteran cuts made to help create that needed cap space.
In this series, we will be going through each of those players, taking a look at why the Packers would keep that player, why they might move on from them, and then I give my prediction.
Below you can find the previous players that I’ve already covered.
Why the Green Bay Packers would keep Mason Crosby
2022 cap hit: $4.73 million
Why would the Packers keep Mason Crosby? Well, just look around the NFL, or even in Green Bay’s own division at Minnesota and Chicago; finding a reliable kicker is difficult.
The 2021 season was undoubtedly a down one for Crosby, especially by his standards, but it’s not as if the nine missed kicks were all his fault–Green Bay’s inability to block on field goal and extra-point attempts was a big factor. Crosby would finish the season 25 of 34 on field goal attempts and 49 for 51 on extra-points.
The poor blocking resulted in a few of those aforementioned misses, not to mention that I imagine Crosby was flustered to some degree on each attempt, not knowing how his blockers were going to hold up, which could have led to him speeding up his process or altering his routine.
However, following the bye week when the blocking was holding up much better, Crosby made 18 of his 19 extra-point attempts over the final five games and all seven field goal attempts. He looked like his old self.
Since 2016, Crosby has a field goal percentage of 84 percent on 160 attempts — including 95 percent between the 2019 and 2020 seasons — and has made nearly 95 percent of his 273 extra-point attempts during that same span. Again, finding the kind of stability that Crosby has largely provided is not an easy task.
If Crosby is back, the hope and expectation would be that he would regain his previous form from the 2019 and 2020 seasons with a more reliable group of blockers in front of him.