Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Packers Draft Possibilities: Draft a Kicker?

One of the major bad surprises of the 2012 season was the inconsistent kicking accuracy of Mason Crosby.  Last year his kicking percentage was 63.6%.  That is 10% lower than any of his previous years on the Green Bay Packers.  He certainly was not his high quality self that we had been seeing before this past season.  Kickers come and go, it certainly isn't worth paying the top kickers from the past season in free agency, because they are usually just as inconsistent.  Now, let's take a look at some of the facts.  The Packers drafted Crosby in the 2007 NFL Draft, 6th round, 193rd overall.  He was the third kicker taken off of the board.  If the Packers want to follow a similar matter, then what are we going to do in this year's draft?

Right now I think that the Packers top kicker prospect is a young man from Oklahoma State, Quinn Sharp.  One thing Sharp can consistently do is have a kickoff be a touchback, which is something that should sound familiar to Packer fans as Mason Crosby does this all the time.  In his 4 year career, he had 220 touchbacks in 384 kickoffs.  70% touchbacks for his Senior season.  This is something that I think we have definite value in because we have Percy Harvin and Devin Hester still currently in our division, and they are both excellent kick returners.  Last year he hit 88% of his field goals (22/25).  I think if we could get him in the 6th or 7th round that would be excellent.  Plus because he is a kicker and punter he would be able to challenge Masthay as well as Crosby.  There would be a lot of value to push our special teams starters with a late round pick.  Plus there is this video of Sharp kicking a 62 yard practice field goal at Oklahoma State.  Clearly some of the editors in Detroit seem to think that it would be an excellent idea for them to bring him in also.  There are some other kickers that Green Bay could look at, that are kickoff specialists and field goal kickers, but I think that they could end up getting signed as an undrafted free agent.

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