The next installment of our 2025 top plays looks at one of the most impressive individual moments of the season: when a lowly practice squad kicker turned loose the kick of his life and set a Packers record.
The Packers’ kicking game has been wandering through the wilderness after Mason Crosby’s departure. Nobody has been able to stabilize their field goal and PAT operation for long, not even Brandon McManus, who steadied things for a time in 2024 before inconsistency and injury dogged him in the 2025
season.
But for a brief moment, the Packers found a savior in the most unlikely place: a little-used kicker who had barely been with the Packers long enough to know where all of the meeting rooms are. His moment in the spotlight clocks in at #8 on our countdown of Green Bay’s top plays of 2025.
The Game
The Packers were at the tail end of a disappointing month and a half of football when they faced the Arizona Cardinals in Week 7 of the 2025 season.
Weeks 1 and 2 had been joyful romps as they welcomed Micah Parsons to the crew and handily dispatched the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders, two of the best in the NFC in 2024. But they fell on their faces in Cleveland in Week 3, tied the Cowboys in Week 4, and headed into their Week 5 bye at just 2-1-1 when a 4-0 start had seemed there for the taking.
Fresh off that bye, they slogged through a 27-18 win over the Bengals that was, paradoxically, both a comfortable win and much harder than it needed to be. And with that, they lurched into Week 7, ready to take on the Cardinals, who were chugging along at 2-4 under the guidance of future Packers’ defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon.
The Situation
Early on, it looked like a disappointing run of Packers football was going to get even worse. The Cardinals opened the game with a long drive that only netted a field goal, but drained nearly half the first quarter. A failed fourth down conversion by the Packers in Cardinals territory scuttled their first drive, but early in the second quarter the Packers got on the board with a 31-yard field goal from Lucas Havrisik, a substitute teacher turned NFL kicker taking the place of an injured Brandon McManus.
After Havrisik’s field goal, the Cardinals reeled off another lengthy drive, kicking another field goal to go up 6-3, then got the ball back after a Packers’ three-and-out with a bit more than three minutes to go in the second quarter. True to form in this game, the Packers couldn’t get off the field, and Jacoby Brissett led the Cardinals on an 11-play drive that culminated in a Trey McBride touchdown, giving Arizona a 13-3 lead.
The Packers had just seven seconds of game time to respond. And after Jordan Love opened their desperation drive with a 22-yard pass to Romeo Doubs, Matt LaFleur ordered Havrisik back onto the field for that response: a 61-yard field goal to pull the Packers within a touchdown as the first half came to a close.
The Play
It’s worth noting that the Packers had already passed up an opportunity for Havrisik to attempt a shorter (but still long) field goal earlier in the game. On the Packers’ first drive, they’d stalled out on the Arizona 38-yard line, but rather than attempt a 55-yard field goal, LaFleur and company had rolled the dice on a conversion attempt, and a pass to Romeo Doubs failed to connect.
This time, though, LaFleur put the situation in Havrisik’s hands. Or, rather, on his right foot.
Kicking from the right hash, Havrisik awaited the snap from Matthew Orzech, got a clean hold from Daniel Whelan, and let it fly. The ball hung in the still air of the Cardinals’ domed stadium, holding true as it sailed straight down the right hash and through the uprights to set a Packers’ franchise record.
It probably would have been good from 64 yards, at least.
The Impact
The kick pulled the Packers to within a touchdown, sending the game into the halftime break at a score of 13-6.
From there, the rest of the Packers finally seemed to wake up. They’d score touchdowns on three of their five second half drives, eventually securing a 27-23 win that was hotly contested right until the end. In fact, if not for Havrisik’s half-ending boot, the Cardinals would have needed just a field goal on their final drive — which stalled out deep in Packers territory thanks to a sack from Micah Parsons.
Postgame, Matt LaFleur was quick to give Havrisik credit.
“We don’t win that game without his ability to go out there and make every one of his tries, his attempts, “ LaFleur said. “I mean, a 61-yarder? How about that? A franchise record. Unbelievable. Hell of a job.”
It was indeed, and it saved the Packers from an embarrassing loss to the lowly Cardinals. And considering how the previous month of Packers football had played out, that would have been a misstep they could hardly have afforded.
