After every NFL season, the Dallas Morning News’ Rick Gosselin combs through a bunch of special teams stats and ranks every team. Usually, the Green Bay Packers come in near the bottom of these rankings.
This year was no different. The Packers finished 20th for their special teams efforts in 2013.
While they excelled in the kicking game behind Tim Masthay’s 44.6 average per punt and Mason Crosby’s career-best 89.2 field goal percentage, the Packers were pretty much awful everywhere else.
Their kickoff and punt coverage units both ranked 29th in the league. The Packers were worst in the NFL in starting field position after kickoffs. Opponents’ average starting position after kickoffs was the 25.6-yard line.
Part of the issue for Green Bay is personnel.
The bottom of the roster — the guys who play special teams — is different every year. A lot of those guys haven’t ever played special teams. You see the result on the field.
Here are the Packers special teams rankings since 2006.
- 2006: 32
- 2007: 7 (tied)
- 2008: 26th
- 2009: 31st
- 2010: 29th
- 2011: 13 (tied)
- 2012: 12
- 2013: 20
6 Comments
Recent Posts
When did Slocum get hired?
12th in 2012 isn’t bad when you consider how bad Crosby was.
Same year Monty started the list at-’06-so it’s not like Slocum is complete garbage as people would like to think. As of this year, we were good-great in 3 areas and bad-awful in 3.
Stop letting Masthay and Crosby get all the glory by making those game-saving tackles on punts and kickoffs I say! I can’t count the # of times the opposition started with half a field to go. Pathetic!!!
Maybe it’s because they haven’t figured out how to fucking tackle???