Kickers taken in the NFL draft rarely have long-term success with their original teams

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Green Bay Packers rookie Trey Smack’s preseason performance indicates he has what it takes to stick around for several years with the team that just drafted him.

But the sixth-round pick from Florida must buck history to do it. There’s perhaps no other position with less of a correlation between a player’s draft status and his long-term success.

Just three of the 16 kickers drafted from 2016-23 stayed with their original teams for at least three full seasons. The only one who remains with the team that selected him is Cincinnati’s Evan McPherson, a 2021 fifth-round pick from Florida.

“With all players coming into the National Football League, it takes a little time,” Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said. “At the other positions … you have probably a little more grace period to develop. Whereas as a kicker, you don’t. So you see a lot of those guys bounce around before they catch on.”

Indeed, plenty of those kickers who got drafted from 2016-23 have enjoyed productive NFL careers. Kansas City’s Harrison Butker is a three-time Super Bowl champion. Philadelphia’s Jake Elliott was on two Super Bowl-winning teams and made a Pro Bowl. Daniel Carlson earned All-Pro honors for Las Vegas in 2022.

They found success only after switching teams.

Butker lost a training camp battle in Carolina and Elliott did the same in Cincinnati before they landed in their current spots. Carlson played just two games for Minnesota in 2018 before getting cut.

“It’s a weird phenomenon,” former Packers kicker Mason Crosby said. “But I do feel like coming out of college, adjusting to the NFL, the ball, the timing, the speed of the game, all the pressure — all of those things — it just doesn’t always work out in that first run.”

Crosby is an exception. He spent 16 years with Green Bay and became the Packers’ all-time leading scorer after they selected him out of Colorado in the sixth round of the 2007 draft.

But he understands why other drafted kickers haven’t had that kind of staying power. One major reason is the ball itself.

The NCAA and NFL don't have the same size requirements for their footballs. That caused a tough transition for Arizona Cardinals kicker Chad Ryland, who went to the New England Patriots in the fourth round of the 2023 draft but was cut a year later.

“A college ball’s a little bit smaller than the NFL ball, so with that come different factors in how the wind affects the movement of the ball, how mis-hits work,” Ryland said. “You can’t quite get away with as much with the NFL ball, which is why becoming a good ball striker is such a high valued thing in the NFL. It’s not just having a big leg.”

The hash marks also are positioned differently. They’re 40 feet apart in college. In the NFL, they’re separated by 18½ feet, matching the distance between the uprights.

Crosby says that forces NFL kickers to adjust to subtler and trickier angles.

“Think of a golf course,” said Crosby, who now hosts a show on the Wisconsin Sports Radio Network. “If you’ve got a hard dogleg left, you can cut over the trees. That angle seems simpler than whenever it’s just a slight, subtle dogleg, and you have to try that little perfect-angled shot to get in prime position.”

In the NFL, the games also are tighter. According to Sportradar, NFL games last year had an average margin of 11.2 points last year, compared to 16.4 points for college games featuring two FBS opponents.

“It’s that first just like initial shock of like how serious this is and how close games are,” said Las Vegas kicker Matt Gay, who lasted just one season in Tampa Bay after the Buccaneers selected him in the fifth round of the 2019 draft. “And I think it just takes a second to get your feet wet, get a little comfortable. I think those expectations with the team that drafts you, you feel it.

“And then almost like once you get released or go somewhere else, it’s like you can kind of decompress a little bit and it’s like, ‘Oh, what just happened?’ And guys find their feet on that next team.”

Veteran kickers also have become so proficient that anyone breaking into the league can’t afford to start slowly.

Sportradar says NFL kickers made 85.6% of their field-goal attempts last season, including 84.3% from 40-49 yards out and 68.8% from at least 50 yards. FBS kickers made 76.6% of their field goals, including 67% from 40-48 yards and just 51.8% from at least 50.

“It’s just a new environment,” Smack said. “You haven’t been there before. You don’t know what to expect. As young kickers, we try to resolve the equation of how to kick in the NFL and we think of it as different, since we did well in college, now we’re at a whole new level where everybody’s the best of the best in the NFL. How can we get better? This is one of the positions where it’s kind of like, you don’t need to get better. You just need to swing your swing and trust your process.”

There are indications this trend could be changing.

Four of the five kickers drafted from 2024-25 remain with their original teams, though the Los Angeles Rams cut 2024 sixth-round pick Joshua Karty last November. That group includes 2025 All-Pro Will Reichard of Minnesota.

Smack, the only kicker drafted this year, went 9 of 9 on preseason field-goal attempts and made three from at least 50 yards, with a long of 59. The Packers want him to stabilize their kicking situation, which has been a problem ever since they moved on from Crosby.

Anders Carlson, a 2023 sixth-round pick, lasted one season. Brayden Narveson opened 2024 as the Packers’ main kicker but stayed for just six games before giving way to Brandon McManus. The Packers are switching kickers again after McManus missed two field goals and an extra-point attempt in a 31-27 playoff loss at Chicago.

“Hopefully, we can have some patience,” Gutekunst said. “I stood up here and told you I always envied (former Packers general manager) Ted (Thompson) because he had a lot of patience with Mason as he was going through the things that he went through early and late in the middle of his career. He just, he had a conviction there, and we certainly do with Trey as well.”

AP sports writers Mark Anderson, David Brandt and Kyle Hightower contributed to this report.

See AP’s full NFL coverage here