Mason Crosby Will Actually Try To Do His Job This Year

You know it’s a slow day if we have to write about kickers.

You remember those guys who don’t do anything but come out and piss the game away by missing a field goal while time runs off the clock, don’t you?

Enter Mason Crosby.

How many games did he cost the Green Bay Packers last season? Too many.

So I had to laugh when I read this headline from the Green Bay Press Gazette: Green Bay Packers K Mason Crosby’s goal: ‘Just make kicks’.

I’m not exactly sure which is funnier, Rob Demovsky’s journalistic chops for uncovering such a groundbreaking story or that Crosby has to plan to actually do his job this season.

Let’s go with the latter.

Let me make sure I have this straight.

So, Mason, you’re saying your goal is to do the the thing you get paid handsomely to do? Are you sure you don’t want to do something else? Maybe your goal should be to become a circus clown.

That’s kind of what Crosby kicked like last season.

Maybe it will be different this year. Perhaps Crosby’s goal was to become a circus clown last season, which took his focus off of making kicks. So perhaps now that Crosby is focused on the thing the Packers are paying him for, everything will be different.

What’s funnier is Demovsky calls this Crosby’s “new mantra.”

What was his old mantra? Don’t make kicks? Make sure your hair is combed? Wipe the drool off your face?

“I think at times last year I put a little added pressure on myself to make kicks and be a certain percentage,” Crosby said. “Instead, let’s just go out there and focus on putting the ball through the uprights. I have all the ability, so let’s just make kicks.”

Maybe I don’t understand this whole “making kicks” thing, but if you made the kicks, wouldn’t that take care of everything else? I guess the old mantra was something along the lines of “just be a certain percentage.”

That must be where things got screwed up.

Here are some of Crosby’s stellar stats from last season when he was “just being a certain percentage.”

Crosby made a career-worst 75 percent of his field goals in 2009. That ranks him 25th in the league among players with 10 or more attempts. More importantly, Crosby was a miserable 4-for-7 (57 percent) on field goals from 40-49 yards and an even worse 2-for-6 (33 percent) on field goals from 50-plus yards.

But hey, the Packers don’t have to worry about any of that, because Crosby actually plans to “just make kicks” this year. That’s great news, since that’s what he gets paid to do.