GREEN BAY, Wis. — It's not that Ryan Fitzgerald isn't confident in all his teammates. He is. But with the Packers driving for a game-tying score in the fourth quarter, the rookie kicker looked at long snapper JJ Jansen as they waited in the fourth quarter.

"He looked me in the eye and he goes, 'Looks like it might be a day for a game-winner,'" Jansen said with a laugh. "And that was about it, right?"

The Panthers are beginning to get used to this kind of behavior from their rookie kicker, who hit his second walk-off game-winner in the last month, with a 49-yard field goal with one second left to beat the Packers 16-13 in Lambeau Field.

That was cool, but so is Fitzpatrick. As reporters crowded around him in a happy but not ecstatic postgame locker room, he laughed and said, "I've never had this many people want to talk to me."

That kind of understated approach is something the Panthers are beginning to expect from the rookie, who won a competition for the job in training camp and has continued to justify that decision.

"Learned nothing," quarterback Bryce Young said with a big grin when asked what they've figured out about Fitzgerald so far. "That's who he is, that's who we know he is. Throughout training camp, everything, he was great. And then, you know, he has that ice in the veins. This is not the first time he's done that, hit a game-winning kick.

"Rookie coming in, not scared of the moment, not afraid of the bright lights, that's the guy he is. That wasn't something new learned today."

He's handled this all calmly, because that's who he's been since he walked in. But getting him in position for that dramatic kick — which moved the Panthers to 5-4, with their second straight road win, and again, it happened in Lambeau Field — was something they were planning on since pregame, and the coin toss.

Special teams coordinator Tracy Smith, an amateur meteorologist, huddled with coach Dave Canales before the game and suggested taking the ball first so they could dictate the direction they'd be pointing in the fourth quarter. Calling tails and having it be tails made it work, since they usually defer when they win.

"Yeah, I've got to give a lot of props to Tracy Smith," Canales said. "He and I were talking before the game, and he was like, if we take the ball, we can set ourselves up to have the ball with the wind to our backs to finish the game to give us an opportunity, and it played out just like that.

"It was unbelievable, but it took all of us doing right to make it happen, so it was a little bit of a change from what we normally do. We'd normally defer in that situation, but the wind was a factor in that decision."

Jansen, who also studies the weather in a way that makes him an honorary Brad Panovich, said that made about a 20-yard difference in what they could try. Fitzgerald missed a 48-yard extra point in the third quarter, going the other way.

"I mean, the PAT we hit from 48 in the third quarter was unmakeable," Jansen said. "I hate to say it, but we had no good options in that case because the wind was so strong in that direction. Going with the wind, it was still very tough. There was not only downwind, but also right to left, but it was a more traditional distances. We probably could have made anything up to I'd say 60 (with the wind to their backs)."

And through those conversations, Fitzgerald was the same quietly confident guy, who has the hustler's nerve but the look of a golf pro. Jansen, who has seen a lot of kickers, likes that.

"He is extremely confident," Jansen said. "To use words like cold-blooded or ice in his veins. He's got that temperament, there is confidence, especially for big kicks, and there's a determination. I always worry about guys who are outwardly expressive how confident they are because that's usually a sign of insecurity. He doesn't say a whole lot."

But he did suggest that he might be in the middle of it all again.

"So we prepared for it. We planned for it," Jansen said. "We wanted to kick with the wind if we got to the fourth quarter in a close game. And then Ryan, he had a really good pregame in that direction because that was a more predictable wind. And, so it was very thoughtful, but it was also very confident, and Ryan's been really good with that all year."

With so many people praising him — and wanting to talk to him — Fitzgerald did a lot of those sheepish grins and spreading the praise around.

"Yeah, just, I mean, so proud of these guys," he began. "Giving me a 49-yarder and offense driving the ball down the field, and the crucial interception we had on defense, and just a great team."

And then, of course, it was just him, just like against Dallas.

"It's fun. It's fun. It's really fun when they go in," Fitzgerald said. "I think there is a sort of comfort level in the fact that I've done it before. I'm still learning new experiences, tough environment on the road this week, tough conditions, you know. There's a lot of firsts for me, and I've still got to keep getting better and as I get used to these conditions, keep getting better at my game."