Packers Sign K Dominik Eberle, What Could that Mean for Mason Crosby?

The Green Bay Packers have made another roster addition for the 2022 season, signing kicker Dominik Eberle to a futures deal.

For those wondering, a futures deal is a contract that teams can sign players to for the upcoming season prior to the new league year beginning. Once that time arrives, which this year is March 16th, the one-year deal goes into effect.

Eberle was a 2020 undrafted rookie out of Utah State, where he made all 167 of his career extra-point attempts, and he was 64-of-81 on field-goal attempts (79%). Eberle was 16-for-21 on attempts from 40-49 yards and 4-of-7 on kicks over 50 yards, according to PFF ($$). For what it’s worth, he was also PFF’s fourth-highest graded kicker in 2019.

Lance Zierlein of NFL.com had this to say about Eberle in his draft profile when he was coming out of Utah State:

"“Kicker with good size and decent leg strength to handle kickoff duties, as well. Eberle’s leg is more “good” than “great” but he was able to hit three 50-plus-yard field goals in a single game in 2018. He’s come in over the last two years with much greater accuracy and consistency and generally strikes the ball with consistency. He is unlikely to be drafted but might have a shot at finding his way into a camp.”"

At the NFL level, Eberle has spent time with Las Vegas, Carolina, and Houston. Of course, when he was in Las Vegas, Rich Bisaccia was his special teams coach, and as we all know, Bisaccia is now the special teams coach in Green Bay–so there is some level of familiarity.

With the Texans this past season, Eberle would appear in one game — the only regular-season appearance of his career — in which he went 2-for-3 on field-goal attempts, including a long of 51-yards, and 5-for-5 on extra-point attempts.

Typically the Green Bay Packers signing a kicker is a move that is going to fly under the radar, but this offseason, it is worth taking note of.

Eberle is now the third kicker on the Packers roster, and in all likelihood, they are going to enter training camp with only two. So who is Eberle competing with? JJ Molson or Mason Crosby?

Crosby is coming off a season in which he missed nine field-goal attempts–the most in a season since 2012. Now, not all the blame can be shouldered by Crosby as the field-goal blocking unit had issues of their own, but Crosby isn’t blameless either.

It’s also fair to wonder if, at 37-years-old, Crosby has lost some of his power and accuracy on longer kicks. He was 7-of-12 on kicks over 40-yards (58%), and he routinely couldn’t get kickoffs through the end zone, which led to numerous returns for a poor Packers coverage unit to defend. Per PFF, opponents would return almost 55% of Crosby’s kickoff attempts, and his 43 touchbacks were the seventh-fewest.

On top of all of that, the capped-strapped Green Bay Packers can save $2.39 million in cap space if they cut Crosby this offseason.

Who knows, perhaps I am reading too much into this–I mean, Eberle and Molson have just one combined game of NFL experience between the two of them. However, coming off a season where Crosby struggled, and in an offseason where the Packers need to pinch pennies, adding a third kicker to the roster is certainly noteworthy.