Greg Joseph just signed to Jet's PS ... my guess is Anders played his way off of another team.
Thanks for the timeline. I do not remember Dave Rayner and didn't know Longwell was taken from waivers.
Yeah it's a chronic case of the yips and shows up everywhere he plays. Whatever happened to Narveson? I though he landed somewhere.
Kicking for the Titans. Sunday missed a long FG, made both EPs.
️ Right!
Longwell was picked up because Chris Jacke went free agent and our PK draft pick, Brett Conway, had a horrific opening preseason game. Conway got hurt over doing it in practice and Longwell made his debut against the Raiders the next game. Conway became toast. He got a tryout in 1998 but the Packers stayed with Longwell. Rayner was an interim kicker. He did hit a long game winner against the Vikings in late 2006 for a 9-7 victory.
Didn't realized the Titans had played him.
So, he wasn't a good draft pick?
And I had the feeling they would have kept Conway and let Longwell go if Conway wouldn't have gotten hurt. Only because he was a draft pick. That would have been a big mistake.
Conway had the leg but just could not translate into accuracy. Kind of like a punter we drafted some years later named BJ Sander.
Thanks milani. Some parts of my memory still work.
Taking a K in the draft is a real crap shoot. How does a scout pick from hundreds of kickers, when it's possible that a solid K will come from other than D1, many times as an UDFA?
Jacke is another guy I remember as having a good career in GB.
Now punter is one area where GB has had pretty lousy luck. Ray "Shankowicz" and Bucky "Squibner" are just two who were bad enough to get nicknames. Whelan is really good - a big leg and an accurate leg. A good punter can make the difference between a W and a L by resetting field position. Anyway he's a valuable part of STs.
I had no problem with the Packers taking a K in the 2023 draft, unfortunately I think they had way too much faith in Bisaccia being able to fix Anders head game and inconsistencies.
Josh Bidwell ( Puntwell )
Thanks I forgot about him. I think he was pretty good but seemed to have a short career in GB. I don't think all that much about STs guys like LS and Punters, so he could have been good for a number of years and I simply missed it....
He was good overall. But I do recall that prior to the famous 4th and 26 drive when Sherman opted for a punt Bidwell put it in the end zone when we could have used a Whelan inside the 10.
That's an important distinction milani. There are punters with big legs and no accuracy (sound familiar?). Whelan has a big leg but routinely puts the ball around the 10 if that's what is needed. I tend to take these kickers for granted until we don't have one.
Sherman shouldn't even have punted. We had 4th and 1 from about the Eagles 40. So we punt for a touchback, and the Eagles got the ball at their 20. On their first play, they gained 20 yards to get to their 40. If we had gone for it on 4th and 1 and failed, it'd be the same thing.
That's interesting and shows how much the game has changed. Once inside an opponent's territory, punting has become almost non-existent. Almost every team will go for it on 4th and one now. And your example shows why. It only took two plays for the Eagles to get back to the 4th down LOS. It's a different game now, and makes me wonder why the league was so slow to change.
Possibly because nobody likes to get called out for a call that goes against accepted common wisdom. Once somebody else does it, you can do it.
That and in many cases "analytics" say to go for it.
We are in the age of go for it. The playbook is a lot bigger today. The rules favor the offense. Scrums are actually legal. And except in extreme wind and weather you cross midfield and the kickers can make very long FGs.
