Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Packer Plus
Things can only get better after down year
Green Bay — In a six-win NFL season, it’s easy to point to multiple areas of said team and say “that was a reason” for a sub-.500 finish. The 2018 Green Bay Packers had their share, but the special teams unit was, by most measures, the worst in all of football.
There are the subjective formulas, such as Hall of Fame football writer Rick Gosselin’s rankings that slotted the Packers last in the league. Within that, he noted the Packers gave the ball away five times and allowed 16 points on special teams, also league-worst totals. The analytics site www.footballoutsiders.com ranked the Packers 28th.
Then there was the eye test, from missed kicks, inconsistent punts, allowing a blocked punt and committing untimely penalties to allowing a kick return for a touchdown and converted fakes. Also, the club rotated through return men due to injuries and never had a difference-maker.
In 2019, the Packers hope two rookies from 2018 improve and level out their production week-to-week and that an influx of size and speed to the back end of the roster can help the coverage and protection units rebound.
Specialists
Roster locks: JK Scott, Hunter Bradley.
Good bet: Mason Crosby.
On the bubble: Unlike a year ago at long snapper when Bradley and Zach Triner competed for the job, the Packers are pretty set with their specialists.
Long shot: Sam Ficken.
Biggest offseason move
Unlike last year, when general manager Brian Gutekunst drafted a punter and long snapper to revamp the special teams unit, this year the biggest acquisition is new special teams coordinator Sean Mennenga. Mennenga is coordinating a special teams unit at the NFL level for the first time, after one season acting in the same capacity at Vanderbilt. He had previously spent seven seasons assisting in Cleveland. The Packers also retained assistant special teams coach Maurice Drayton and then added a quality control coach in Rayna Stewart. All of this was done in an effort to improve upon one of the worst overall special teams groups in the league in 2018. There were too many penalties and coverage breakdowns (i.e. converted fake punts and fake field goals and long returns) last year, and those are elements that better coaching and practice can correct.
Position battle
The Packers claimed Ficken off waivers from Seattle on April 15, and he has remained on the roster since – so it stands to reason the 26-year-old will be given a chance to beat out 13-year veteran Crosby. To date, Ficken has not been able to latch on with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs, L.A. Rams or Seattle Seahawks since coming out of Penn State in 2016. At least initially, it feels like the job is entirely Crosby’s to lose in training camp and the preseason – or Ficken will have to just be so good it’s impossible to not keep him. Should the Packers cut Crosby, they would save $3.6 million on the 2019 salary cap.
Keep an eye on
How the kick and punt return situations shake out. At the outset, it feels like Trevor Davis has a leg up on everyone toward securing a roster spot as the primary kick returner. But after he missed 14 games and was hobbled in one of the two he did play last year, the team claimed former New York Giants returner Jawill Davis to provide some competition. Jaire Alexander can be a dynamic punt returner, but he is also the team’s No. 1 cornerback. Tramon Williams filled in as a punt returner due to injuries last year but had his share of issues. Mennenga has said that at least initially, all options are on the table for those returning positions so it’ll be interesting to see who stays healthy, and who gets the most of the reps once camp opens and the preseason games begin.
Key question
Will Crosby “bounce back?”
Crosby, who turns 35 two days before the regular season begins, is in the final year of a four-year contract he signed in 2016, paying him $3.2 million. He enters 2019 as the seventh-highest-paid kicker in the game but finished 23rd in field goal percentage in 2018. Now, nothing happens in a vacuum. Few will forget the game in Detroit where the veteran missed five kicks – four field goals and one extra point – but outside of that one performance Crosby made 90.6% of his field goals and 97% of his extra points. The field goal percentage would have been a career-high by far.
The organization likes that Crosby knows how to kick in the challenging conditions of Lambeau Field and his ability to bounce back after misses. He missed a potential game-winner against Minnesota in Week 2 and made a game-winner against San Francisco in Week 6. He made more 50-yard field goals in 2018 than he had the previous four years as well. Overall, it’s hard to say he has declined too much.
Prediction
Scott will make a big jump in year two. The big-legged punter out of Alabama showed, at times, why Gutekunst drafted him in the fifth round – two spots ahead of Marquez Valdes-Scantling. But, more often than not in 2018, Scott struggled. He was No. 21 in punting average (44.7) and No. 17 in net (41.3) with a league-high nine touchbacks and a 10.3 yards returned against average, sixth-worst in the league. Scott also put only 19 punts inside the 20, which was 28th in the league. So, in reality, the bar for standard improvement isn’t very high. But he can flip the field from deep in his own end and has shown the ability to get the ball high for proper coverage and fair catches.