Anders
Carlson.
Anders
Carlson.
Auburn· 6'5"· 219 lb
"The most experienced leg in the class and the least predictable one: a five-year SEC starter who owns Auburn's record book, carries an NFL surname, and missed as many kicks from 40-plus as he made."Pre-draft read
A five-year starting placekicker with a tall, leggy build and a compact two-step approach, Carlson was Auburn's designated points machine from his redshirt freshman year forward. The leg is the trait: natural power that gets the ball up fast and carries easily into the mid-50s. His strike is clean when the plant foot lands square.
The variance is the other half of the story. His ball tends to draw hard when the plant drifts, and the misses cluster from 40-plus rather than short of it. He is at his best in the 20-to-39 band, where he was close to automatic, and in cold or hostile settings where composure matters. The signature is a big-moment leg in a body that has already absorbed a torn ACL and a shoulder injury.
A team that needs a cheap, rookie-contract kicker with genuine mid-50s range and is willing to coach through streakiness, ideally in a dome or a cold-weather stadium where leg strength outweighs precision.
Year 1: outright starting placekicker and kickoff man on a roster with no veteran competition. Ceiling: a decade-long starter if the 40-plus accuracy stabilizes into the low 80s overall.
A win-now roster whose games are decided by three points and whose special teams staff has no patience for a two-week slump, where the first cluster of misses ends the job.
Kicker evaluations live and die on the 40-plus split; his was 25 of 39 in college and the pros reproduced it almost exactly.
Anders Carlson Highlights (2020)
His best college season - 20 of 22 - including the 39-yard game-winner against Arkansas with seven seconds left.
Anders Carlson kicks 62-yard field goal in scrimmage
The raw leg strength that carried his evaluation, on display from 62 yards in an Auburn scrimmage.
Auburn Tigers Football: Anders Carlson
Auburn's own feature on the five-year starter who finished second in program history in field goals made and career scoring.
Carlson kicked in the SEC longer than almost anyone in the 2023 class, and the resume reads like a program record book: second in Auburn history in field goals made (79) and career scoring (410), third in extra points made (173). He is also Daniel Carlson's younger brother, a comparison he never asked for. The football identity was a big-legged, high-character specialist with real range and real inconsistency.
The season-by-season line tells it plainly. He went 15 of 25 as a redshirt freshman in 2018 with two makes from 53, improved to 18 of 25 in 2019 including a four-field-goal night against Alabama, then peaked at 20 of 22 in 2020 with a game-winner against Arkansas from 39 with seven seconds left. Then the body intervened: a torn ACL against Mississippi State ended 2021 at 14 of 21, and a shoulder injury in the same rivalry ended his 2022 regular season at 12 of 17.
Boards liked the leg, the combine invitation and the makeup - a two-time Academic All-American and Campbell Trophy finalist - and worried about the accuracy from distance, where he was 25 of 39 from 40-plus and 5 of 17 from 50-plus for his career. Green Bay had Mason Crosby unsigned and a young roster, and spent 207 on a rookie to inherit the job outright.
- 01
Proven SEC leg
Five years as the starting placekicker in the toughest kicking league in the country, finishing second in Auburn history in field goals made (79) and career scoring (410).
- 02
Natural power
Gets the ball up quickly and carries comfortably into the mid-50s, with a 53-yard long as a redshirt freshman and a 62-yarder made in an Auburn scrimmage.
- 03
Automatic inside 40
Went 33 of 33 from 20-29 and 15 of 20 from 30-39 across five seasons, the band where an NFL offense needs a kicker to be a non-event.
- 04
Big-moment record
Game-winner from 39 with seven seconds left against Arkansas in 2020 and a four-field-goal night against Alabama in 2019, both on the road side of the pressure ledger.
- 05
Elite makeup
Two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American, Campbell Trophy finalist and Good Works Team selection who came back from a torn ACL to start again the next fall.
- 01
Distance accuracy
A career 25 of 39 from 40-plus and 5 of 17 from 50-plus; the range exists, but the strike gets loose the moment he asks the leg for extra.
- 02
Career percentage
71.8 percent for his college career is a poor number for a five-year starter, and the two best seasons were the two shortest ones.
- 03
Injury history
A torn ACL ended his 2021 season and a shoulder injury cut short 2022, meaning his final two years produced only 19 games of tape.
- 04
Plant-foot drift
When the plant lands off-line his ball draws hard left, and the misses come in clusters rather than isolated bad swings.
| Yr | Team | G | Punts | Yds | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Auburn | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Auburn | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Auburn | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Auburn | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Auburn | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Career | — | 56 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
cfbstats carries Auburn player pages only from 2020 forward, and its 2020-2022 lines match exactly (11G 20-22 FG / 24-25 XP / 84 pts; 10G 14-21 / 35-36 / 77; 9G 12-17 / 22-22 / 58). The 2018 and 2019 seasons come from the official Auburn athletics bio (15-25 FG and 44-44 PAT in 2018; 18-25 FG and 48-49 PAT in 2019). The seasons sum exactly to the career line: 15+18+20+14+12 = 79 field goals, 25+25+22+21+17 = 110 attempts, 44+48+24+35+22 = 173 extra points and 89+102+84+77+58 = 410 points, matching the school records Auburn publishes (second all-time in field goals made and scoring, third in PAT made). He redshirted in 2017 and appeared in no games, so that year is omitted rather than entered as zeros. Career distance splits: 1-1 from inside 20, 33-33 from 20-29, 15-20 from 30-39, 25-39 from 40-49 and 5-17 from 50-plus.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A strong-legged kicker who bounces between rosters early, converts at a respectable clip and eventually finds a job he can hold.
His older brother: a big-legged mid-round kicker who was cut as a rookie and then became one of the most accurate high-volume kickers in football.
A journeyman leg whose accuracy swings decide his employment year to year and who is never safe through a bad month.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Green Bay handed him the job immediately and lived with the swings. He played all 17 games as a rookie in 2023, made 27 of 33 field goals but only 34 of 39 extra points, and the missed points became the story of a young team's tight games. He was 14 of 14 from 30-39 and 7 of 13 from 40-plus, exactly the split the evaluation warned about. The season ended at Levi's Stadium in the divisional round: leading 21-17 midway through the fourth, he missed from 41 yards, San Francisco drove 69 yards for the go-ahead score and Green Bay never got the ball back in time. The Packers cut him the following August. San Francisco signed him in 2024 and he went 5 for 5 in two games, then the Jets picked him up and he hit 8 of 10 with a career-long 58 to beat Indianapolis, before New York replaced him in June 2025. In April 2026 he resurfaced with the UFL's Birmingham Stallions.
The pick itself was defensible - a proven SEC leg with a combine invitation in the sixth round is normal cost. The miss was in the projection. Auburn's tape already showed the 40-plus wobble, and Green Bay handed him a starting job with no veteran alongside him to absorb a bad month. Kickers who convert 83 percent as pros can stick for a decade; kickers whose most-replayed swing is a playoff miss rarely get the runway to prove it. He has stayed employable, never entrenched.