Wasn't Crosby's Fault

Listened to the local (Milw.) feed of ESPN radio this afternoon. They yak away. Sometimes, they even make sense.

But this time, they didn't. They were discussing the Packers, of course.

More specifically, Mason Crosby, the Packers' placekicker, who hasn't had the best of seasons. He hasn't been as bad as the poor soul from the Washington Redskins who missed a 23-yarder against New Orleans last Sunday, that, in all likelihood, would have yanked them from the ranks of the unbeaten.

Crosby missed a 38-yarder against Baltimore. Now, in his business, Crosby's supposed to make those. The wind wasn't very strong, the footing wasn't very bad. He couldn't have used those excuses.

But he did have an excuse, a very good excuse. Except nobody on the radio show gave him anything close to credit for it.

Matt Ryan, the Packers' holder, bobbled the snap momentarily, and the snap was, in fact, quite good. He got the ball down, but the timing of the kick was thrown off.

When that happens, the kicker has to hesitate or he'll either simply miss the ball or take the holder's hand with it. So Crosby waited, double-clutched, and pushed the kick to the right.

And somebody got after him for it. "He has to find a way to make that," said one of the commentators.

I called in and reamed them out. First of all: For a kicker, any kicker, to even get enough on the kick to get it somewhere in the vicinity of the goalposts after double-clutching is pretty amazing.

Because all kinds of things could happen at that point. He could raise his head, as many people do when their timing's off--name the sport: baseball, soccer, hockey, basketball. When that happens, success is nearly impossible.

Beyond that: Raising one's head, as in golf, usually means that the ball will not go up--it'll stay down. He could easily have kicked it low enough to have been blocked, or--more embarrassing, but with the same effect--right into the backsides of his blockers.

A blocked kick is always disastrous, but at that particular point in the proceedings, it could have been a game-changer. So, again, the fact that it got beyond the line of scrimmage was important; it took that factor out of the play.

Matt Ryan felt the kick could still be successful. He was hoping in a fool's paradise. And I'm quite sure he's coached in that situation to know what to do.

It's this: Every team has a code word that it uses for the holder to yell, once it becomes clear that a placekick isn't going to happen. Even though Ryan bobbled the ball just momentarily, he should have automatically yelled that code word.

That meant that he would be taking the ball and rolling out to either side of the line of scrimmage. At that moment, the two players at the end of the Packers' line, plus the two flanking them, would have flared out into the secondary.

Because the other team is usually totally committed to blocking the kick, it might even have been fooled enough to overcommit. That might have meant that, even though the original play had been doomed to failure, the Packers could have either gotten a first down or even a touchdown out of it.

Defenses also hold players back, just in case something like that happens, so maybe it wouldn't have worked out that way. But to take the chance of having the kick blocked due to poor timing is something that Matt Ryan, in all likelihood, would have had to answer for Tuesday morning.

It was a tough call because he bobbled it so briefly. But with the kind of exquisite timing that such kicks take, briefly is all it took.

None of this has anything to do with Mason Crosby, of course. He has to deal with what he's been given. And again, he had to have excellent concentration in order for him to double-clutch and get enough on the ball to even give it a decent chance.

I explained some of this to the live radio staff. They muttered something to the effect of Crosby missing field goals in earlier games. Yes, that's true. But this time, it wasn't his fault whatsoever.