Packers Rookie Kicker Trey Smack Goes Perfect in Preseason Debut Against Steelers

Trey Smack had a rough couple of weeks at Nitschke Field. Then the lights came on in Pittsburgh, and the rookie kicker looked like a different player.

The Green Bay Packers’ sixth-round pick went 3-for-3 on field goals — from 37, 58 and 38 yards — in Green Bay’s preseason opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday night. He also drilled a fourth attempt, another 58-yarder, that got wiped off the board by a penalty. According to Packers.com, officials flagged former Green Bay defensive lineman Dean Lowry for roughing the snapper on that first kick, handing the offense a fresh set of downs instead of three points.

Smack didn’t blink. He just kicked it again.

The Packers lost the game 28-9, undone late by a defense that ran out of proven bodies. But the final score wasn’t really the point of a preseason opener. The story was Smack, and how he handled the moment after weeks of uneven practice reps.

A Perfect Night at a Brutal Kicking Stadium

Acrisure Stadium has a reputation among NFL kickers. Swirling wind off the Ohio and Allegheny rivers has turned plenty of confident legs into cautionary tales. Smack didn’t seem to notice. His first 58-yard attempt came on Green Bay’s opening drive, set up by a Jordan Love-led march that also included a third-and-4 conversion to Jayden Reed. That kick split the uprights before Lowry’s penalty erased it, and Smack simply came back out and made a 37-yarder instead.

His signature moment came right before halftime. Third-string quarterback Kyle McCord drove the offense 35 yards in 38 seconds with no timeouts, hitting three straight completions to set up a spike with one second left. That gave Smack a look at another 58-yarder — same distance, different half, same result. It sailed through as time expired, cutting Pittsburgh’s lead to 7-6 at the break. He added a 38-yard field goal later for his third made kick of the night.

Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love called Smack “the highlight of the night,” according to Packers.com’s postgame coverage.

From Shaky Camp to a Statement Debut

None of this looked inevitable a few weeks ago. Smack, a sixth-round pick out of Florida, opened training camp making just 8 of his first 13 attempts, a rough enough stretch that it drew scrutiny for a kicker the Packers traded up to select. He started finding his rhythm during Family Night at Lambeau Field, going 6-for-7, and reportedly spent time this past week talking with Packers Hall of Fame kicker Ryan Longwell.
There was also a hometown assist. Green Bay long snapper Cal Adomitis played his entire college career at Pitt, and Smack said the two talked through what to expect at Acrisure Stadium before the game. “Cal and Dan (Whelan) do a great job of getting the ball down long enough so I can see it,” Smack said, per Packers.com. “From there, it’s on me.”

Smack wasn’t interested in taking a victory lap afterward. “I don’t really try to feel relief in this kind of business because we always have next week,” he said. “We gotta play next week. My mind’s already switched to the Broncos,” referencing Green Bay’s next preseason game in Denver.

Why This Matters for Green Bay

The Packers haven’t had a stable answer at kicker since Mason Crosby’s final season in 2022. Anders Carlson, Brayden Narveson and Brandon McManus have cycled through the job since, and Green Bay released McManus — even after paying him a roster bonus — once it added Smack in the draft. General manager Brian Gutekunst has said he believed a kicker with Smack’s talent would typically go in the fourth or fifth round, which is part of why the front office paid two seventh-round picks to move up for him.

That backdrop is why one clean night in Pittsburgh carries weight beyond a preseason box score. It doesn’t erase a shaky camp, and it’s one game against a Steelers roster full of players competing for depth-chart spots. But it’s the first real evidence that the leg strength Smack showed at Florida — where he set the school record with 10 career field goals of 50-plus yards — can translate to NFL distances under real pressure.

Starters Held Their Own Before the Drop-Off

Green Bay’s first-team defense, under new coordinator Jonathan Gannon, forced a three-and-out to open the game, with Zaire Franklin recording an 8-yard sack of Mason Rudolph on an A-gap blitz. Edge rusher Brenton Cox Jr. added a sack of his own on the next series. Running back MarShawn Lloyd, playing his first game action since last August after two injury-plagued seasons, carried four times for 13 yards in his return.

The problems came later. Green Bay’s reserve defense allowed three unanswered touchdowns in the second half as Pittsburgh pulled away, and rookie Steelers quarterback Drew Allar threw for two scores and ran for a third in his own debut. But for a preseason opener, the top units doing their job and the roster coming out healthy mattered more than the final margin.