GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Mason Crosby, to paraphrase his coach, has been a highly successful NFL kicker for the Green Bay Packers for 10 years.
Yet there was the 32-year-old on Monday with a massive crowd at his locker asking questions about the six field goals he missed in Saturday's Family Night practice while there was considerably less attention paid to the rookie long-snapper and rookie holder.
Those two elements of the field-goal operation, however, have forced Crosby to essentially start over even though he's coming off another stellar season that he capped with the last-second, game-winning field goal at Dallas to send the Packers into the NFC Championship Game.
Gone is long-snapper Brett Goode, although he's still available should the Packers call if rookie Derek Hart doesn’t improve. And punter Jacob Schum, who held for Crosby last year, suffered a back injury this spring, leaving Justin Vogel as the only punter (and holder) in camp.
"I've been fortunate; I've had the same snapper for the last nine years prior to this, so the consistency there, it takes some work, it takes some time," Crosby said. "Justin and Derek need to get in sync with their stuff and then I just have to trust and go. It just kind of got out of sync there on Saturday night, and unfortunately it's there in the stadium and everybody weighs that a little heavier, but ultimately for me, for my preparation, it's just another practice."
Crosby is a career 80.4 percent kicker who holds the NFL record for the longest streak of consecutive postseason field goals but has never had to work with a pair of rookies.
"Obviously, for these guys to be here they're going to have to be consistent and do their jobs the right way, and I've got to trust that that's going to happen," Crosby said. "So for me, it's more just focusing in on what I can control and the things I can control and stop necessarily worrying about all those little variables.
"It's kind of tough, being a veteran guy, and some new guys in and seeing some things we need to work on. It obviously affects what I'm doing. But ultimately I can only do what, control my own things. That's always my approach, to go out and make sure I do what I need to do to be prepared and to knock it through and then put the work in and make sure that we get enough reps, that we have enough time to feel comfortable with each other."
Crosby tried not to throw his new partners under the proverbial bus, but several times he mentioned issues with the laces on the football and said even during the stretch in which he made 22-of-23 field goals during training camp practices they have "gotten away with" some kicks.
"It all kind of, unfortunately, unraveled there on Family Night with some of the snaps, getting the laces and things like that, just getting the timing down," Crosby said. "So it's something that we evaluated a lot today and we'll have another session of field goal [Tuesday] making sure we put the work in to get it fixed. We don't have a lot of time, as far as before we play a game, so we need to be sharp and we all -- all -- have to be better than that, regardless of where the laces are and what-not, I've got to try to knock it through."
It's Hart's job to make sure the laces are positioned correctly so that Vogel doesn't have to spend critical milliseconds adjusting the ball on Crosby's approach.
"I want to give it to Justin laces out, so that he doesn't have to move it around as much," Hart said. "That's what you want. That doesn't always happen. We're not robots. Every now and then a little something happens, but that's why you have trust and depend on each other. If I slip up a little bit and don't give him perfect laces then he'll correct me."
Crosby did not kick on Monday but worked with Hart and Vogel off to the side during practice.
"There was just some minor inconsistency," Vogel said. "Sometimes [Hart] was a little bit off, sometimes I was a little bit off, sometimes Mason was a little bit off. The problem is, you culminate those and if it's here and it's off there, no matter how good he hits it, we're going to be at a disadvantage. We just got off sync."
The last thing the Packers want to do is mess up Crosby, who has made 85.9 percent of his field goals since his one down season in 2012.
"I'm not worried about it yet," Packers special teams coach Ron Zook said. "Obviously if it continues on for a couple weeks, yeah I'm going to be concerned. But that's not going to happen, we're not going to let that happen. But he is a pro and he knows how to fix what he needs to fix, and I think it's not only him it's everybody."