Den21vsBal19
10-17-2008, 06:55 AM
Although dealing with the league as a whole, I thought I put this in here as the guy wrote a book in our training camp..................
Stefan Fatsis: Thursday Morning Kicker (http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/stefan-fatsis-thursday-morning-kicker/index.html?ref=sports)
Sure, I’m biased. But kicking is playing a deliciously outsize and historically excellent role this season.
Let’s start with the anecdotal. On Sunday, my former fellow Broncos kicker Jason Elam nailed a game-winner from 48 yards to conclude Atlanta’s absurd comeback over Chicago. Josh Brown made one from 49 at the buzzer to give St. Louis its first win of the season. Keith Kidd of Scouts Inc. reports that kickers made six fourth-quarter field goals this past weekend that gave their teams a tie or a lead. Of the many clutch kicks so far, though, none matches Matt Bryant of Tampa Bay’s heroic performance a few days after the death of his infant son.
Elam, at age 38, is 16-for-17 with a 50-yarder and leads the N.F.L. in scoring. Smart move to finish his career in a dome. Elam’s 24-year-old replacement in Denver, Matt Prater, is 13-for-14, including 4-for-4 from 50-plus with a 56-yarder and a 55-yarder that was easily good from 70. On that one, Coach Mike Shanahan had sent in the punt team when Prater astutely suggested letting the clock run out on the first period and kicking a field goal with the wind to start the second. See? Kickers are smart, too.
But here’s the real story: Through Week 6, N.F.L. kickers have converted 306 out of 356 field-goal attempts. That’s a success rate of 86.0 percent. If they keeping splitting the uprights thusly, kickers will enjoy a sixth straight record-breaking season, shattering last year’s mark of 82.8 percent.
You might think they won’t because kicking will get harder as the weather turns colder. But you’d be wrong. In four of the last 10 seasons, field-goal percentages have increased from Week 6 on. In four others, the drop was 1.1 percentage points or less. (Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders points out in an email to me that teams attempt fewer longer field goals later in the season because of the weather, which helps explain why performance doesn’t necessarily decline. Plus, kicking conditions don’t change in domes and warm climates.)
Yes, Martin Gramatica has supplied a couple of stereotypical kicker moments. (I have a soft spot for the guy. When I first trotted onto the Broncos’ practice field, a player shouted, “It’s Martin Gramatica’s dad!”) And kickers may be benefiting slightly from a modification last year in the 1999 rule requiring the use of so-called K balls—hard, slick, fresh-from-the-box balls that kickers can’t pound into friendlier shape, as they did for years. Now, the K balls can be broken in more before games and are used more frequently during them, softening them up a bit.
Mostly, though, kickers are just better than ever. And coaches are recognizing that kicking field goals makes more sense than ever; they’re on track to let kickers attempt more than 1,000 field goals this season, which would be a first. The conventional wisdom has been that missing a field goal of 40-plus yards gives an opponent too-good field position. But the risk is dropping. Through the first six weeks of the season, kickers have made 79.4 percent of field goals from 40 to 49 yards and 65.8 percent of kicks from 50 yards and beyond. I’d take those odds. If the numbers hold up, they’ll blow away the old records.
Stefan Fatsis: Thursday Morning Kicker (http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/16/stefan-fatsis-thursday-morning-kicker/index.html?ref=sports)
Sure, I’m biased. But kicking is playing a deliciously outsize and historically excellent role this season.
Let’s start with the anecdotal. On Sunday, my former fellow Broncos kicker Jason Elam nailed a game-winner from 48 yards to conclude Atlanta’s absurd comeback over Chicago. Josh Brown made one from 49 at the buzzer to give St. Louis its first win of the season. Keith Kidd of Scouts Inc. reports that kickers made six fourth-quarter field goals this past weekend that gave their teams a tie or a lead. Of the many clutch kicks so far, though, none matches Matt Bryant of Tampa Bay’s heroic performance a few days after the death of his infant son.
Elam, at age 38, is 16-for-17 with a 50-yarder and leads the N.F.L. in scoring. Smart move to finish his career in a dome. Elam’s 24-year-old replacement in Denver, Matt Prater, is 13-for-14, including 4-for-4 from 50-plus with a 56-yarder and a 55-yarder that was easily good from 70. On that one, Coach Mike Shanahan had sent in the punt team when Prater astutely suggested letting the clock run out on the first period and kicking a field goal with the wind to start the second. See? Kickers are smart, too.
But here’s the real story: Through Week 6, N.F.L. kickers have converted 306 out of 356 field-goal attempts. That’s a success rate of 86.0 percent. If they keeping splitting the uprights thusly, kickers will enjoy a sixth straight record-breaking season, shattering last year’s mark of 82.8 percent.
You might think they won’t because kicking will get harder as the weather turns colder. But you’d be wrong. In four of the last 10 seasons, field-goal percentages have increased from Week 6 on. In four others, the drop was 1.1 percentage points or less. (Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders points out in an email to me that teams attempt fewer longer field goals later in the season because of the weather, which helps explain why performance doesn’t necessarily decline. Plus, kicking conditions don’t change in domes and warm climates.)
Yes, Martin Gramatica has supplied a couple of stereotypical kicker moments. (I have a soft spot for the guy. When I first trotted onto the Broncos’ practice field, a player shouted, “It’s Martin Gramatica’s dad!”) And kickers may be benefiting slightly from a modification last year in the 1999 rule requiring the use of so-called K balls—hard, slick, fresh-from-the-box balls that kickers can’t pound into friendlier shape, as they did for years. Now, the K balls can be broken in more before games and are used more frequently during them, softening them up a bit.
Mostly, though, kickers are just better than ever. And coaches are recognizing that kicking field goals makes more sense than ever; they’re on track to let kickers attempt more than 1,000 field goals this season, which would be a first. The conventional wisdom has been that missing a field goal of 40-plus yards gives an opponent too-good field position. But the risk is dropping. Through the first six weeks of the season, kickers have made 79.4 percent of field goals from 40 to 49 yards and 65.8 percent of kicks from 50 yards and beyond. I’d take those odds. If the numbers hold up, they’ll blow away the old records.