GREEN BAY, Wis. — As of Wednesday afternoon, the Packers’ Week 1 kicker wasn’t even officially a Packer.
Incumbent Anders Carlson and veteran Greg Joseph dueled all summer, only for both of them to get released. The Packers instead claimed Brayden Narveson off waivers from the Titans. He’s an undrafted rookie out of North Carolina State who didn’t have a locker inside Lambeau Field shortly past noon on Wednesday and wasn’t at practice later in the day.
Yet Narveson, who went 6-for-7 on field goals in the preseason with his only miss coming from 58 yards, will be Green Bay’s kicker against the Eagles in Brazil only nine days after unofficially joining the team.
“When we went into this year, we rotated some kickers through here. I think we were the only team to have three for most of the training camp,” general manager Brian Gutekunst said, referring to Carlson, Joseph and most recently, now-practice squad kicker Alex Hale. “We were looking a lot. We were monitoring the league. Brayden was a kid that we liked coming out and then he had an excellent preseason there in Tennessee. As it unfolded and he was let go, we thought it was an opportunity to get a really good young kicker and give him a shot at it.”
LIVE: GM Brian Gutekunst meets with the media. 🎙️ https://t.co/3NcAUhmT7S
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) August 28, 2024
Narveson made both of his PATs in preseason games and field goals from 34, 21, 59, 46 (as time expired to win Tennessee’s second exhibition game), 26 and 31 yards. Narveson was 18-for-23 on field goals at N.C. State last season (78.3 percent) and 71-of-91 in his career at Iowa State, Western Kentucky (three years) and N.C. State (78 percent). He made all 196 of his extra-point attempts in college.
This is head coach Matt LaFleur’s 16th year coaching in the NFL. He said adding a No. 1 kicker this late in the process is “uncharted territory” for a team he’s been with. He deferred questions about getting Narveson ready for the regular season to special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia, who will talk to reporters Thursday, instead saying, “You just have to come in and perform. I don’t know how else to put it. But it’s definitely a unique situation.” He even went as far as to say the unique situation surrounding Narveson could alter his playcalling to start the season.
“Absolutely. 100 percent,” LaFleur said. “I think you’ve got to take into account all the circumstances. No different, though, like when you go out and there’s inclement weather. Sometimes that affects some of the decision-making you make. We’ll see. At least we’ll get a couple days with him to kind of get a feel for him as he performs. What’s hard is you just don’t have any game experience with him, but he did a nice job in Tennessee. I know that.”
GO DEEPER
Kadarius Toney, Desmond Ridder and the most surprising cut from every NFL team
Carlson missed a kick in nine of the Packers’ final 12 games last season and finished the preseason 61-of-75 on field goals (81.3 percent). Joseph fared even worse (58-of-74, 78.4 percent), but the Packers released Carlson on Tuesday while keeping Joseph on the active roster before cutting him Wednesday after they claimed Narveson. The Packers enjoyed the consistency of Mason Crosby for most of his 16 years as the team’s kicker. He never missed a game in the regular season or playoffs and, despite multiple rough stretches, always emerged on the other side reminding the Packers why they stuck with him.
They drafted Carlson in the sixth round last year and, from May 2023 through the end of the season, he was the only kicker on the roster. This offseason, the Packers signed four kickers to compete with him — Jack Podlesny, James Turner, Joseph and Hale. Not only were those four insufficient foes, but Carlson couldn’t rise high enough above the competition, either.
“I think it was a culmination of the whole camp and everything,” Gutekunst said of cutting Carlson. “For me, and I think our group as we went through it, it was just, we were going to try to get better there and whether that was Anders, whether that was somebody from outside, it didn’t matter. But we needed to get better. We felt we needed to get better, so that’s kinda the reason why we made the decision. Kickers in this league, you know, some of them come out right away and they can handle it and sometimes they’ve got to bounce around a few times before they land. I think Anders is probably gonna be one of those guys. He’s got a ton of talent.”
Pick up The Athletic 2024 Fantasy Football Guide to read expert evaluations & everything you need to know to win your fantasy football league.
Pick up The Athletic 2024 Fantasy Football Guide to read expert evaluations.
Buy
Gutekunst admitted Wednesday that he’s “probably not as patient with specialists as I should be.” Not only did he just release a 2023 draft pick, but he also cited 2018 fifth-round pick JK Scott, the former Packers punter, as someone who’s “turned into a very good punter” with the Chargers since the Packers released him in August 2021. Gutekunst lauded late former Packers GM Ted Thompson for his patience with Crosby, the Packers’ all-time leading scorer, patience with Carlson that Gutekunst admittedly didn’t exercise given what’s at stake this season. Maybe Narveson will have a longer leash, but the Packers need him to perform right now.
“I give Ted a lot of credit,” Gutekunst said of his mentor. “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 … 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.”
What else you need to know
1. New Packers backup quarterback Malik Willis was at practice Wednesday and spoke to reporters, saying the Titans trading him was surprising but that he’ll “do my best to learn the offense and be prepared to back up Jordan (Love) and do whatever I can to help this organization and this team.” Gutekunst said he expects Willis to pick up the offense fast enough to be Jordan Love’s backup in Brazil. Willis and Love already have a relationship since they share an agent and have worked out together several times.
Malik Willis: “I didn’t wake up thinking I was gonna be traded, no sir, so it definitely caught me by surprise … It’s no time to really think about it. It’s time to go.”
Willis shares an agent with Jordan Love, so they already know each other. pic.twitter.com/uVw4O6DyD6
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) August 28, 2024
LaFleur said he thought the Packers’ offense would be more similar to what Willis ran in Tennessee this summer with new head coach Brian Callahan, but that there are more parallels to what Willis ran earlier in his Titans career because of the carryover from LaFleur’s offense as Titans play caller in 2018 to Arthur Smith and then Todd Downing in the same role. Now, Willis will basically have to learn a new language since Green Bay calls things in the offense differently than in Tennessee.
Why did Gutekunst trade for a backup quarterback instead of pick Sean Clifford, who re-signed with Green Bay’s practice squad, or Michael Pratt, who signed with the Buccaneers practice squad?
“I think certainly there were some underwhelming performances at times,” Gutekunst said of Clifford and Pratt. “But at the same time, Malik is a guy that certainly — he’s in his third year and he really has shown a lot of progression, particularly this preseason. It was just an opportunity for us to add a guy that I think can not only make plays with his arm but with his legs, as well … the one thing we saw, particularly with this new coaching staff in Tennessee, is how much he progressed within the offense playing from the pocket and making plays that way. Again, this will be new for him and obviously the quarterback position, it’ll take a little bit of time. But at the same time, just really excited about where his progression has taken him this far and where he’ll go particularly under our group.”
2. The Packers hadn’t had a player they released on cutdown day claimed since the Saints claimed Taysom Hill in 2017, but they had three guys claimed on Wednesday. The Dolphins claimed wide receiver Grant DuBose, who lost the battle for No. 6 wide receiver to Malik Heath. The Giants claimed safety Anthony Johnson Jr., who missed out on the 53 as Green Bay opted for safety Zayne Anderson’s special teams ability instead. And the Buccaneers claimed offensive lineman Royce Newman, Green Bay’s 2021 fourth-round pick.
3. The Packers’ running back depth is shaky at best. Josh Jacobs is healthy, but the Packers placed AJ Dillon on season-ending injured reserve Tuesday and rookie third-rounder MarShawn Lloyd, who made the 53, didn’t practice on Wednesday as he reached almost three weeks sidelined with a hamstring injury. First, on Dillon, Gutekunst said, “I think we’re very, very cautious with head, neck and hearts around here and we always have been. Obviously, he had the injury last year, went through some things this year. I won’t get into any of the details of it, but it was something we weren’t comfortable with at the moment. Hopefully, that will change in time — obviously, he won’t be with us this year — but he’s going to need some time to get through this to see exactly how this will shake out. We’re wishing the best for him.”
Lloyd said he hopes to be ready next week and that’s his goal, but that he’s “just taking things day by day,” while LaFleur added, “You feel like he can handle most of the playbook. It’s not like he hasn’t been learning. It’s just the application of taking it from the classroom and applying it in a real game setting. You wish you had a little bit more exposure.”
In other words, Emanuel Wilson might be Green Bay’s No. 2 running back against the Eagles.
Packers DE Arron Mosby made the 53 after closing preseason with a forced fumble and INT against the Ravens.
“My game throughout the preseason, it was great, but the last game put a stamp on it to make it seem that I’m here to stay. But like I said, every day is an audition.” pic.twitter.com/LpDIOeH0fG
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) August 28, 2024
4. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Packers had signed 13 players to their practice squad and still had four spots remaining. Those players were defensive end Deslin Alexandre, Clifford, defensive tackle James Ester, Hale (International Player Pathway program exemption), wide receiver Julian Hicks, wide receiver Jalen Wayne, offensive lineman Donovan Jennings, cornerback Kalen King, running back Nate McRary, running back Ellis Merriweather, cornerback Robert Rochell, offensive lineman Lecitus Smith and tight end Messiah Swinson.
(Photo of Brayden Narveson: Denny Simmons / USA Today)
