The Green Bay Packers have decided to add a strong and real competition to Anders Carlson after the sixth-round pick struggled as a rookie. On Tuesday, the team signed veteran kicker Greg Joseph, according to his agent Brett Tessler.
According to Ian Rapoport, from NFL Network, it's a salary close to the veteran minimum deal. Joseph has agreed to a one-year contract, up to $1.295 million.
Who Joseph is
Greg Joseph was born in South Africa and moved to Florida when he was seven. Undrafted in 2018, he spent time with the Miami Dolphins, Cleveland Browns, Carolina Panthers, Tennessee Titans, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers early in his career. Over the first three seasons, though, he played only 16 games — 14 as the main starter for the Browns in 2018, and two more for the Titans in 2019.
Joseph found a home and spent the last three seasons with the Minnesota Vikings. Last season, he converted 80% of his field goals (24 of 30), which is actually slightly worse than Anders Carlson (81.8%).
However, Greg Joseph converted 36 of 38 extra points (94.7%), while Carlson converted 34 of 39 (87.2%).
Depth
Now, the Packers have three kickers on the 90-man roster — even though there's a chance one of them will be released sooner rather than later.
Besides Anders Carlson and Greg Joseph, the Packers also have first-year kicker Jack Podlesny, a former Georgia special teamer that went undrafted last year and spent training camp time with the Minnesota Vikings.
Kicking situation
The Packers let Mason Crosby walk in free agency last season and drafted Anders Carlson in the sixth round.
The idea of moving on from Crosby was fine, but the replacement plan failed, and Carlson was one of the worst full-time kickers in football. Among 31 kickers with at least 10 games, he was 25th in field goal percentage and the second worst in extra point percentage. He missed six field goals and five extra points in the regular season. Also, Carlson missed a huge 41-yard field goal against the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round, leaving the game with a four-point difference. The 49ers scored a go-ahead touchdown in the following drive.
“I think as we got towards the end of the season, and we were headed towards the playoffs and had an opportunity to be in the playoffs, certainly something, if there was a veteran option out there that would have been really good, then maybe we would have considered it,” Gutekunst said. “But there wasn’t. He was the best option by far. We’re really excited about where he’s going.”
Market
The Packers had tried to sign a veteran kicker for some time. Last week, Bill Huber, who covers the team for Packer Central, reported that Green Bay was close to signing an undisclosed veteran in free agency.
"According to the source, the Packers offered him a contract and the kicker agreed to it, only for him to have a change of heart and sign with another team," Huber wrote.
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