Sometimes, all it takes is having the right teammate at the right time.
Ultimately, that’s one of the biggest reasons that Trey Smack is now the Green Bay Packers’ kicker. When he was going to high school in Maryland, Smack was a lacrosse player, not a kicker on his school’s football team. But he had an incredible leg anyway, and when you have a teammate whose father is a former All-Pro kicker who had a 19-year career in the NFL, you’ll have a better chance to be discovered and tutored than the average person.
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That’s essentially what happened to Smack. He quickly became the top kicking recruit in the country, which led him to being a 6th-round draft pick of the Packers. It’s fun story to see playing out, and hopefully he’ll have a long, successful career like that of his mentor (with a couple of Super Bowl rings, also like his mentor).
Meanwhile, the NFL’s schedule release from last week has finally come and gone, but over the last few days, there have been some ongoing pieces of analysis about it. For the Packers, there’s some good news about the strength of schedule when you look ahead rather than looking backwards, and there’s also one notable oddity that hasn’t happened in at least 15 years (depending on how you define it).
Let’s take a look at those items as we wait just one more week for the start of OTAs in Green Bay.
Rare schedule item: No back-to-back division games for Packers | Packers.com
This is one item that I missed in the schedule reveal last week, and it very much is an oddity. The last time this happened was in 2002, though you could consider 2009 since the consecutive division games came on either side of a bye week.
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NFL Strength of Schedule Rankings for 2026, Done the Right Way | SI.com
By looking at projected win totals rather than last year’s records, the Packers’ schedule ranks as the 9th-toughest, not in the top 3.
How Matt Stover discovered new Packers kicker Trey Smack | ESPN
The two-time Super Bowl-winning kicker took Smack under his wing after Stover’s son, who was on a lacrosse team with Smack, saw him messing around kicking a football and told his dad about it. Stover says Smack had a pro leg at 16 years old.
Zaire Franklin confident in Packers’ trajectory: When you’ve got a QB and a pass rush, you’ve got a chance | NFL.com
It’s hard to argue with that logic. The question is whether the pass rush will have enough juice early in the season while Micah Parsons is getting ready to return.
Packers UDFA profiles: Can guard Josh Gesky sneak onto 53-man roster? | Packers Wire
Gesky and wideout J. Michael Sturdivant are my top two picks among this year’s UDFA group to make the roster.
This Fish Hitches Rides in Manta Rays’ ‘Buttholes,’ According to New Research | Smithsonian Magazine
They’re researching the important questions at the Smithsonian Institute these days.
Read the full article here
