After seven-plus mostly successful seasons in Silver and Black, the reasons that Daniel Carlson is no longer the Las Vegas Raiders' kicker are obvious: slowly eroding proficiency and being 31 years old. Add in the cost it would've taken to retain him at the start of another rebuild, and you get a poor fit.
It's fair to say, however, that Carlson is still one of the 32 best kickers in the NFL. Yet, now into training camp and with preseason games on the horizon, he remains available on the open market. There hasn't even been any word of a team bringing him in for as much as a workout.
There are multiple potential reasons for the league-wide lack of interest in Carlson. Maybe what he wants financially has been deemed untenable, or an injury has prevented him from taking opportunities that may have been offered.
Or maybe he just wants a clear-cut opportunity to be someone's kicker that has yet to materialize. Well, luckily for him, one is now seemingly presenting itself as the Green Bay Packers' kicking issues unravel ahead of the 2026 NFL season.
Former Raiders K Daniel Carlson may have a perfect opportunity land in his lap soon with Packers
From 2007-2022, spanning the end of the Brett Favre era, the entire Aaron Rodgers era and the start of the Jordan Love era, the Packers had no real concerns about their kicker situation with all-time legend Mason Crosby holding down the fort.
Over the last three seasons, though, the Packers have employed four different kickers: Anders Carlson-Daniel's brother, Brayden Narveson, Brandon McManus and Lucas Havrisik. None of them have stuck in Green Bay.
A change is coming again this year, with sixth-round rookie Trey Smack now the uncontested frontrunner for the job after Havrisik was waived. But Smack is off to an uninspiring start to training camp.
ESPN's Rob Demovsky noted windy conditions on August 2 as a reason that Smack went 3-for-5 on field goals that da. But he followed that by going just 5-for-8 the next day in slightly better kicking conditions. That's not nearly good enough in training camp.
At the start of camp, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst made it clear that patience is a prerequisite with Smack, but there will be limits to it for a Packers team that, by all accounts, is in a win-now window.
"I'd like to have some patience here, but at the end of the day, any player, if he's costing us opportunities to win football games, then we're going to have to look at that," Gutekunst said. "But again, we really have a lot of confidence in Trey and what he's going to be able to do, but he is a rookie kicker and he's got a lot to learn and earn before he gets there."
If Smack isn't showing signs of improvement, when might that already tenuous level of patience (using Gutekunst's own words) run out? In what will be a hotly-contested NFC North, the Packers can't leave games to chance on the leg of a young kicker they can't rely on. Gutekunst clearly knows that.
At minimum, with no other kickers on the roster as of this writing, adding some competition would be in order for the Packers. Carlson would clearly fit that bill, if not tilt toward eventually being the outright replacement for Smack.
If Carlson is waiting for an ideal opportunity--a legit chance to win a job on a contending team -- the Packers look to be as good as it gets right now. If Smack continues to be inconsistent in camp and/or struggle in preseason games, their level of interest should ramp up in-kind as they survey options.
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