Draft-and-develop for me, but not for thee: The Packers couldn't wait for their kicker

First, the patience wore out for Anders Carlson. Greg Joseph didn't last a day in his place. Now the Packers once again have a rookie kicker, but now face more pressure it make that kicker work.

The Green Bay Packers chalked up Anders Carlson’s struggles as a rookie to an extension of their draft-and-develop ethos. After the 2022 and 2023 draft classes fundamentally remade the roster, Carlson’s career arc could still fit the timeline. It would just be more Rashan Gary than Jayden Reed, more patience than instant impact but just because he played kicker didn’t mean he wouldn’t be given the grace to find a groove. That story made sense when the Packers were a scuffling 2-5 team. Carlson would be given a runway to get better. By the end of August of 2024 though, his time had simply run out thanks, ironically, to the vertiginous growth of that struggling 2-5 team into a bonafide NFC contender less than a year later. Now, the Packers are once again relying on a rookie to handle kicking duties, only this time Brayden Narveson faces the pressure of developing much sooner with Super Bowl hopes on the line.

When the Packers kick the season off in São Paulo Brazil, they’ll rely on a kicker who couldn’t break 80% in college at North Carolina State with barely a week to get him acclimated to a new long-snapper and holder.

Matt LaFleur called this last-minute switch “uncharted territory,” but when asked how the team would get the rookie Narveson ready, he replied with a tight smirk, “Not a question for me. That is a question for Rich Bisaccia.”

If the Narveson experiment fails, paired with what Brian Gutekunst deemed his own impatience with Carlson, and the dismissal of Greg Joseph, Bisaccia will bear the blame. His experiment with Anders’ brother Daniel in Las Vegas played a role in the draft pick. Bisaccia insisted that despite Carlson’s lack of consistency in college, the talent was there. The coaching staff could get him where he needed to be, but that never happened.

This isn’t speculation. Gutekunst said it on the record.