Paul Bretl | 10/15/2024
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Packers have made a change at kicker, reportedly bringing in veteran Brandon McManus to hopefully provide some stability to a position that has not had that since Mason Crosby left. This then of course means that the team is moving on from Brayden Narveson.
Following the Packers win over the Arizona Cardinals, head coach Matt LaFleur was once again asked about his kicker, Narveson, who had another miss in Sunday’s game.
Two weeks prior, LaFleur faced similar questions after Narveson missed two losses in what eventually became a three point loss to Minnesota. At that time, LaFleur expressed his belief in the rookie kicker.
“I’ve got a lot of confidence in Brayden,” LaFleur answered. “I do. I know it’s tough. We all want the results. He’s a young guy, and a lot of times with young kickers, you go through this. Certainly, I know he’s disappointed, but I’ve still got a lot of belief in him.”
This past Monday, however, LaFleur’s reply didn’t evoke the same confidence and with hindsight being 20-20, told us a move may have been on the horizon.
“I wouldn’t say that right now, no,” said LaFleur when asked if a change at kicker was needed. He also said that they were taking things “day by day.”
The Packers claimed Narveson off waivers during roster cutdowns after he was released by the Tennessee Titans. While perfect on extra points, Narveson had made just 12-of-17 field goal attempts, which included a miss in four of the Packers six games–and really it was five of six games after a missed attempt was negated by a penalty on the Titans in Week 4.
With a hit rate of 70.6 percent, only the New York Jets’ Greg Zuerlein has a lower field goal percentage this season and Narveson is one of only four kickers to have missed a field goal attempt from under 40 yards.
The misses that Narveson experienced were all the same with the ball floating just past the right upright. On one hand, you could look at this as something that was fixable. Much like a golfer, rather than hitting a slice on one swing and a hook on the next, having only one type of mishit–for lack of a better word–in theory should make solving the problem easier.
And although the issue continued to persist, Narveson and the Packers did seem to know what the root of the problem was that led to his inconsistency–perhaps giving the team added belief along the way that the problem would be resolved.
“Well, I could tell, Rich could tell, my kicking coach could tell and Matt could tell, and Matt snaps,” said Narveson of his misses after the Minnesota game. “We all could see the same thing. It was pretty apparent. It’s something that I don’t do at practice. Just being a little more meticulous about my process, my steps, the preparation, and really honing in and fixing that and we should be good to go.”
On the flip side of all of that, knowing the problem and not being able to fix it is a red flag of its own. There’s also only so much that can be done when the issue, as Narveson pointed out, only seems to pop up in games while practices seem to go relatively smoothly.
At the end of the day, whether it was a simple issue or not, or regardless of how well practice was going, kicks have to be made on Sundays and that wasn’t happening regularly enough for Narveson.
It oftentimes takes young kickers time to develop into reliable players. However, with this being a Packers team with Super Bowl aspirations, time to work through those growing pains is not something that Green Bay can afford. The time to win is now, and in a game where the margin for winning and losing is razor-thin, continuing to trot out a kicker on Sundays who is missing regularly isn’t an option. This is a position that the Packers have to get right.
“I’m probably not as patient with specialists as I should be, I’m really not,” said GM Brian Gutekunst before the season. “I give Ted a lot of credit, certainly he was a much (more) patient man than I was. I think Mason was under 80 percent until like his fifth year and then that sixth year was my first year in the office in 2012 and I think he was 60-some percent and missed like 12 kicks. I can tell you right now there were people in the office that were like, ‘let’s move on.’
“So I probably need to be a little bit more patient. We had JK Scott in here who’s turned into a very good punter. But at the same time, I’m very confident in this team and what we can accomplish so I want to make sure we give this team every opportunity to win. So there’s going to be a standard that we’re going to try to reach.”