Daniel Carlson still hasn’t found his next NFL stop, but the market may finally be opening up in a way that makes sense for him.
The former Raiders kicker is sitting in free agency after seven-plus mostly successful seasons in Silver and Black, and the reasons he’s no longer in Las Vegas are easy enough to trace: his consistency has slipped, he’s 31 years old, and the price tag to keep him around at the start of another rebuild would have been hard to justify. Even so, he still profiles as one of the league’s 32 best kickers. And yet, with training camps underway and preseason games approaching, he remains unsigned, with no team even reported to have brought him in for a workout.
There are a few obvious explanations for that quiet market. His asking price may have been too rich.
An injury could have kept him from taking a chance that was available. Or maybe he’s simply been holding out for a clean path to a kicking job, the kind of straight-up opportunity that hasn’t come along until now.
That’s where Green Bay enters the picture.
The Packers’ kicking situation is sliding back into familiar trouble. For nearly two decades, from 2007 through 2022, they barely had to think about the position while Mason Crosby handled it all.
But over the last three seasons, Green Bay has cycled through four kickers: Anders Carlson, Brayden Narveson, Brandon McManus and Lucas Havrisik. None has stuck.
Now the latest answer, sixth-round rookie Trey Smack, is the one standing in front of the job after Havrisik was waived. But the early returns haven’t helped his case.
ESPN’s Rob Demovsky reported that windy conditions on August 2 played a role in Smack going 3-for-5 on field goals that day, and the next day he was only 5-for-8 in slightly better conditions. That’s not the kind of start that settles a job.
Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst has already signaled that he’s willing to be patient, but not indefinitely. “I'd like to have some patience here, but at the end of the day, any player, if he's costing us opportunities to win football games, then we're going to have to look at that,” Gutekunst said. “But again, we really have a lot of confidence in Trey and what he's going to be able to do, but he is a rookie kicker and he's got a lot to learn and earn before he gets there.”
That’s the key tension here. Green Bay may want to let Smack work through the learning curve, but in a competitive NFC North, the Packers can’t afford to keep handing over kicking duties to someone they can’t trust. Gutekunst knows it, and the clock is already ticking on how long patience lasts if the misses keep piling up.
At the very least, the Packers need competition. Right now, they don’t have another kicker on the roster, and Carlson would fit the bill immediately.
If the rookie keeps wobbling in camp or preseason, Carlson could become more than just a fallback option. He could end up being the answer.
If he’s waiting for the right team and the right chance to win a job on a contender, Green Bay looks like the clearest opening on the board.
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