I was having a debate with a fellow Packers fan on a UK NFL site about Mason Crosby's performance to date. He argued that Crosby's overall line was skewed by McCarthy's insistence on using him for very long field goal attempts. However, I think believe there's a greater problem.

I like Crosby and recognise there's very little out there that could currently replace him. His huge leg makes him an asset on kickoffs (though he struggled with hangtime last year), but it also impacts on his field goal accuracy.

In short, whilst doing a bit of digging I came across these statistics which are pretty striking. Crosby's career stats split by distance:

20-29 Yards
16 attempts, 16 made field goals, 100.0%

30-39 Yards
25 attempts, 21 made field goals, 84.0%

40-49 Yards
21 attempts, 14 made field goals, 66.7%

50+ Yards
12 attempts, 7 made field goals, 58.3%

The long-field goals don't help, but he's not exactly accurate inside 40 yards, which should be automatic for an NFL kicker.

His career statistics show he's been pretty much below average (I've seen 85% used a benchmark for a good kicker) on attempts above 30 yards in distance.

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Inside 50 is not "automatic" for kickers in the NFL. I think he isn't doing as well as I had hoped but I have not given up on him yet.

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It's not great, but 60 yard free kicks and what not do weigh in. I just hope he'll drill one of those through soon.

That said, he has obviously struggled with longer field goals. But our punters have struggled as well. The KR crew has struggled and pretty much everyone and anyone besides Blackmon hasn't shown anything.

I hope that this has more to do with shoddy ST coaching by Stock than anything else. The reports out of training camp have been a reason for optimism, as he drilled 6/6 between 45 and 58 yards multiple times. He did miss one in the 40-49 range again in the game, though. Hoping that was just fluky.

It's a shame that he always seems to miss at the least opportune time, though...

I really think it all comes down to holders. Most kickers have the same holder year after year. Crosby has had many different guys, and that can throw off a kicker BIG time. I think he will be fine after he gets back in sync with Flynn.

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Sorry that was meant to be inside 40 yards. I've changed the opening post to reflect this.

Elite kickers like Elam, Kaeding, Gould, Graham, Hanson and Reed (and even historically like Vanderjagt, Stover, Andersen and Anderson) all converted well 90% and over of their field goals inside 40 yards.

Crosby is seemingly great inside the 30 yard line, but poor to average beyond that.

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40-49 is still a pretty difficult range. In fact, I went to the stats for last years field goals from nfl.com, pulled them out into excel so I could play around with stuff and found that the average last year in the NFL for that range was 74.5%. Crosby's performance last year was a little disappointing. He needs to work on his consistency. He's still young though and he's got one of the strongest legs I've seen in the NFL.

edit: I now see that you went back and changed the within 50 yards remark

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Crosby is also kicking off the Frozen Tundra. He's not kicking in a dome, so that's gonna impact his stats too. You not only have a frozen ball and lord knows what kind of field, but you got swirling winds up in the bowl too.
I'd like him to hit more consistently, but if you cut him you gotta replace him. You know he'd get nabbed right away if we released him too.
Also, keep in mind that he's had some sort of abdominal strain of late.
Still, I bet they bring someone in next offseason.

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You've got a lot of time on your hands. :neener:

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To copy and paste into excel, reformat, and enter the equations to sum and average took all of 5 minutes.

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He's still very young too. I think as he matures he will become rock solid.

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