Dave Rayner looked like a underdog when the Green Bay Packers claimed him off waivers last spring to go head-to-head with five-year veteran Billy Cundiff for the team's place-kicking job.

While Cundiff dressed in the Packers' main locker room, Rayner was in the adjacent auxiliary locker room with the team's street free agents. Cundiff was first on the depth chart, and usually took the first kick in drills and sometimes got an extra rep at the end.

But Rayner won the job early in camp, and on Sunday the former Michigan State kicker and metro-Detroit native will have about 30 family members and friends at Detroit's Ford Field when the Packers play the Lions.

"You didn't hear much about (Rayner)," said Rob Davis, the Packers' long-snapper. "He was a kickoff man in Indy last year. I think everybody thought that because Billy had the game experience, he'd be the guy. To Dave's credit, he hung in there and kept competing."

It turns out the Packers liked what they saw of Rayner from early in their offseason workouts, and were testing his poise and competitiveness by leaving him second on the depth chart through the first two weeks of training camp.

The Packers surprised most observers, and Rayner, when they cut Cundiff after the first preseason game. Rayner had the stronger leg, but the two had missed about the same number of kicks in camp.

"I was bitter the whole time, sitting here thinking, 'Why am I not getting as many reps as he is?" Rayner said. "It all worked out."

The Packers' last kicker, Ryan Longwell, also was a surprise when he won the kicking job in 1997 ahead of third-round draft pick Brett Conway. Longwell, who was an undrafted rookie in 1997, parlayed Conway's bad start in the preseason and subsequent leg injury into a successful 10-year career with the Packers and a lucrative contract with Minnesota during the offseason.

Longwell started his Packers career by making his first six kicks, ranging from 22 to 38 yards. His first miss came in the final seconds of a one-point loss at Philadelphia, when he slipped on the wet turf and botched what would have been the winning 28-yarder.

Rayner hasn't been tested like that, though he started poorly against Chicago when he rushed his approach and swing on a 53-yard field-goal attempt and badly hooked it. His lone kickoff against the Bears went to the 4-yard line.

Last week against New Orleans, he was 2-for-2 on field goals from 24 and 36 yards. He had six kickoffs, all with a brisk wind mostly at his back, and three were touchbacks.

"I hope I go in this year and make every field goal," Rayner said, "but I just want to improve, and I think I have so far. From Week 1 to Week 2, I kicked a whole lot better. Would I like to be here 10 years? Yeah, I'd love to play anywhere in the NFL for 10 years."

Rayner was born in the Detroit suburb of Rochester, Mich., and went to high school in nearby Oxford, Mich. He was a kicker and punter in football, and a Division I prospect as a sweeper in soccer. He said Michigan State and Oakland University offered him soccer scholarships, and Ohio State recruited him in that sport, before opting to play football for Michigan State.

He was the Spartans' kicker all four years, from 2001-04. He made 60 of 92 field-goal attempts (65.2 percent), including 22 of 29 attempts (75.9 percent) as a senior.