Masthay: Didn't touch field-goal miss

When Tim Masthay arrived in the locker room after Sunday’s 18-16 loss to the Detroit Lions, he heard the rumors.

Coming off the field, the Green Bay Packers place-kick holder did not think his off hand had deflected Mason Crosby’s potential game-winning field goal. But he wasn’t sure. Curious – “very curious,” Masthay admitted – he consulted the film.

Upon further review, Masthay said, the film confirmed his hand did not deflect the football after Crosby’s kick.

“It’s always a close look,” Masthay said. “It’s a reasonable thing to ask because it was an unusual ball flight. But, no, it doesn’t appear to have touched or glanced my finger or anything. Mason and I work together as a unit, and it’s not like anybody’s pointing fingers in this locker room or anything like that. But we wanted to check it out because it’s something that has to be addressed if it had happened, but it doesn’t appear like that.”

All the extra film review might have uncovered an answer for how Crosby’s kick wound up so horribly off course.

In the locker room Monday afternoon, Masthay said he had spoken with Crosby “a bunch” in the previous 24 hours. The duo believes field positon might have been a factor. The south end of Lambeau Field receives more shade, making it soggier. Over the course of the game, that soft ground gets “chewed up” in the trenches by offensive and defensive linemen.

“The one thing we noticed,” Masthay said, “and when we zoomed in and stuff – and we remember it just from our recollection – is the spot where we kicked from, there was a little depression in the ground, and he decided just to go with it because you don’t have much time to adjust that. So when we looked at the film, it looked like his toe might’ve glanced at a little bit of a higher spot of ground behind it.”