GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers have a kicking problem.

With Trey Smack missing an extra point on Thursday, he is up to a league-high eight missed kicks his season. That includes six over the past four games, which begs this question (and the terrible pun from the headline):

Is it time for the Packers to hit the panic button?

The Packers traded up in the sixth round in this year’s draft to select Smack with the belief that he would upgrade an obvious weakness on the roster.

Everyone expected there would be some growing pains with a rookie kicker, just like there’s growing pains with a rookie at any position. However, those concerns to a large extent are a myth. 

Over the last decade, 40 rookie kickers have attempted at least 10 field goals in a season. Will Lutz represents the league median with an 82.4 percent success rate. The overall median is 85.1 percent. For a kicker who attempts 35 field goals in a season, the difference in those percentages is one made kick.

Through eight games, Smack is 11-of-16 on field goals (68.8 percent) and 16-of-19 on extra points (84.2 percent). Among kickers with 10 field-goal attempts, only one kicker has a lower percentage. Among kickers with 10 point-after attempts, only three kickers have a lower percentage.

Just how bad has Smack been? For a team that enjoyed long runs of success by Chris Jacke, Ryan Longwell and Mason Crosby, here’s this nugget from The Associated Press’s Josh Dubow:

Trey Smack now leads NFL with 8 missed kicks (5 FGs, 3 PATs). That's most for a Packers kicker in first 8 games of a season since Max Zendejas had 9 misses in 1988

— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) October 30, 2026

Against Detroit last Sunday, Smack missed from 26 and 35 yards. Other than a block, Smack’s miss from 26 is the only one from less than 30 yards this season.

Talk about a mental block. He could probably make 100 of those in a row in his sleep but, in the pressure-cooker of a division game at Ford Field, he misfired.

No Bounce Back From Smack

Coaches love to talk about having a next-play mentality. Matthew Golden dropped a touchdown pass against Carolina, only to catch a touchdown on the next play. Jordan Morgan can miss a block on first down but deliver a pancake on the next. Brandon Cisse can be flagged for pass interference on one play and make back-to-back plays in the end zone moments later.

It’s not that easy for a kicker, who might have to stew on a missed kick for an hour or a week.

“We’re better now,” special teams coordinator Cam Achord said on Wednesday, one day before the Carolina game and a few days after Smack in a three-point loss at Detroit became the first kicker since 2019 to miss two kicks of 35 yards or shorter in a game.

“I think for anybody, human nature, myself included, when you don’t go out and execute the way you want, you’re going to be a little bit frustrated, depressed or (feel) like you let people down. But as it goes on, you get back to it, and you can move forward. We’re good now. We’re in a good spot, and it goes back to having all the confidence in him and knowing that he is a confident person. So, I think we’re in a good headspace leading into tomorrow night. And I’m excited to see him kick.”

So much for that.

Smack missed his first extra-point attempt and was booed off the field. He bounced back to make the next three, with the fans celebrating with arguably the loudest cheers of the night. Was that a sign of that next-play mentality and a huge step forward? Or was that merely an NFL-level kicker doing something an NFL-level kicker is expected to do?

General manager Brian Gutekunst has to figure that out. He’s the one who gave up two draft picks to select Smack. He wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t think Smack had the talent and toughness to solve the Packers’ kicking problems. He wouldn’t have paid Brandon McManus’ $1 million roster bonus and then wished him good luck if he didn’t think Smack had what it takes mentally and physically.

Waiting for a young kicker can be a death sentence for a season, though. After a hot start to his rookie season in 2023, sixth-round pick Anders Carlson fell into a slump from which he couldn’t snap. So, it was no surprise at all that he missed a field goal in the Packers’ three-point playoff loss to the 49ers.

But, again, the Packers drafted Smack because they believed in him. He was the consensus best kicker in this year’s draft, so perhaps Gutekunst feels wedded to what Smack can become and inclined to wish away the struggles. 

It’s different positions, obviously, so admittedly an absurd comparison, but Jordan Love threw eight interceptions in his first eight games as the starter in 2023. Should the Packers have benched Love at the time? They didn’t, of course, and their patience has been rewarded.

“A lot of people want to talk about the negatives and all that, which is fair. It’s very fair,” Achord said. “There’s no bones about that, but we’ve got to go back to the process that got us here and what we did 90 percent of the time.”

What’s Done Is Done, So Now What?

Should Gutekunst have drafted Smack in the first place, when history will tell you that the difference between a drafted kicker (median 85.0 percent on field goals over the last decade and undrafted kicker (85.7 percent over that same span) is negligible? Should Gutekunst have given Smack a free pass onto the roster by releasing McManus and Lucas Havrisik before the first offseason practice?

The answers are probably no and no but, at this point, those questions are irrelevant. What’s done is done. The Packers drafted Smack, they didn’t pressure him with a challenger and now a team with a small margin for error has one of the worst kicking situations in the league.

So, what should they do with him? Do they ride it out, betting that Smack will get “the contact back to where it was and where it can be,” as Achord put it? Or will they bet on whatever unemployed veteran kicker they can find to fix what ails the kicking game, like McManus did in 2024?

There’s no easy answer, especially at a position group in which Havrisik, with a career success rate of 79.2 percent on field goals in 12 games, might be the best option.

Maybe it’s a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t proposition. The Vikings drafted Daniel Carlson in the fifth round in 2018 and cut him after two games. He became one of the best kickers in the league with the Raiders, including two All-Pro seasons.

Maybe that will be Smack’s path. Maybe a few extra points will get him out of his funk and he will be a weapon for this year’s playoffs and the next several years’ playoffs. Or maybe he’ll kick the Packers right out of the playoffs and the team’s kicker merry-go-round will keep spinning.

Jordan Love was responsible for 81.4 percent of the Packers' yards vs. Carolina. It's a familiar sight (and not a great one), writes @JacobWestendorf. ⬇️https://t.co/DN9QoD8k3X

— Bill Huber (@BillHuberNFL) November 1, 2026