The Green Bay Packers were truly willing to create competition at kicker. Instead of waiting, general manager Brian Gutekunst traded his two seventh-rounders to move back into the sixth round and select Trey Smack. But that wasn’t an exclusive decision from the front office.

New special teams coordinator Cam Achord, who replaced Rich Bisaccia this offseason, is on board with the decision and excited to develop the rookie.

“It was a collaborative effort,” Achord said. “Kind of like Gutey and Matt [LaFleur] alluded to, you give your opinion to those guys. You tell them where you feel like guys are, where they will be, what they’ll be in the future. To me, when you’re projecting guys, you’re not just projecting their first year. You’re projecting what they can be in Year 2, 3, 4. So you give your opinion to those guys, you say what you’re convicted in, and then obviously they make those decisions, but you’re obviously giving your input.”

Best kicker of the class

There was a national consensus that Smack was the best kicker of this year’s class. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler mentioned that the rookie “lives up to his last name with both power and accuracy in his leg.” The consistency, though, is what impressed Achord.

“Straight ball, accuracy,” the coordinator stressed. “His ball doesn’t move a lot. I don’t need a guy that can kick 65 yards personally. I want the guy that’s going to put it through consistently from 58, 55, because again, we’re playing in Green Bay, whether I was coaching New England, coaching at MetLife. We’re going to play in elements and it’s not you’re not going to need the 60-yard ball all the time. You’re going to need the 45-yard ball with a 14 mph crosswind. So his ball not moving and stuff like that was definitely a big part for me.”

Kicking competition

At the moment, the Packers have three kickers on the 90-man roster. While it’s highly expected that Smack will ultimately win the job, the plan is to generate a real competition to make everyone better — even if it’ll be a long road for veterans Brandon McManus and Lucas Havrisik.

“I love it. The more the merrier,” Achord added. “I’ve had as many as four, just to be honest. They always have their strengths. They all, they’re here for a reason, all of them. I think it’s going to be a great competition. I think all those guys bring stuff to the table. So that’s why they’re all here. They’re all professional football players. And we’ll work it. We’ll manufacture where everybody’s getting reps and we’ll divide it up. But it’s not something I’m new to by any means. So we’ll work the reps accordingly for each of those guys and then working with Matt [Orzech] and Daniel [Whelan] off on the side.”

You might like the process of drafting a kicker or not. But the Packers are truly confident that Trey Smack can become a valuable asset for the organization for years to come.