The Green Bay Packers have a young and talented roster that should make up one of the NFL’s most competitive teams for years to come. Jordan Love is entering his second season as the Packers’ starting quarterback after taking the league by storm in the second half of the 2023 NFL season. Green Bay also boasts a young wide receiver room with numerous young players that can huge producers.
The defense, too, is stacked with young talent. At 30 years old, Preston Smith is the oldest player on the entire team and is surrounded by seven former first round picks. New defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley has brought in a aura of excitement and high energy that has not been seen on that side of the ball in a long time.
However, there still remain serious questions on special teams, particularly at the kicking position, after Anders Carlson struggled in his rookie season.
Green Bay Packers Kicker Anders Carlson Was Inconsistent in 2023
Following their disappointing 2022 NFL season, the Packers made the decision to move on from several key veterans on their roster. Of course, four-time NFL MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers was the most noteworthy of these players. Trading him to the New York Jets paved the way for Love to begin his tenure as Green Bay’s starting quarterback.
Another important veteran that the Packers decided to move on from at the end of the 2022 season was kicker Mason Crosby, the franchise’s all-time leading scorer. To replace him, Green Bay selected Anders Carlson out of Auburn with a sixth-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
The decision to move on from Crosby was an unpopular one among the Packers fanbase and grew even more so as Carlson struggled throughout his rookie season. While he made 81.8% of his field goals, which is a slightly higher percentage than Crosby’s career mark of 81.2% Carlson missed an inexcusable number of extra points and midrange field goal attempts.
He was just 4/8 on field goal attempts between 40-49 yards and made just 87.2% of his extra point attempts. So inconsistent was Carlson that Green Bay has brought in multiple kickers to compete for the job during OTA’s and training camp.
Carlson may still win the job, but he will have to earn it. And if he does, one NFL analyst thinks he will be a bust.
NFL Analyst Believes Green Bay Packers Kicker Anders Carlson Will Be a Bust in 2024
In an article in which he named the player on each NFL team that will be a bust in 2024, Bleacher Report‘s David Kenyon wrote of Carlson:
“Kickers are fickle. After a single misfire in seven games to start 2023, Anders Carlson missed a kick in 10 of Green Bay’s next 12 outings. Lost confidence is a real challenge for specialists, and a similar kind of struggle could lead to Carlson not making it through 2024 on the roster.”
Anyone who watched Carlson last season knows that he has an uphill battle to retaining the starting kicker job in 2024. That being said, if he does win the competition in camp, he will likely hold onto the job throughout the season.
The fact of the matter is that there are not many good free agent kickers out there. Green Bay has already brought in several, and one has already been released.
Hopefully he has figured out what caused his struggles last season and can be more reliable in 2024. The Packers now have higher expectations for their team, and another year like last year is not going to be acceptable.
