Kickers make 96% within 40 yards

Record year for NFL field-goal stat

NFL placekickers in 2018 were more acc urate than e ver within 40 yards.

According to statistics provided by the NFL, kickers last season made 481-of501 field-goal attempts from 39 yards or less.

That’s a success rate of 96 per cent, best on record.

The NFL’s detailed annual place-kicking stats go back to 1966.

Place- kicking success rates typically worsen the farther back in time you search ( e. g., in 1967 kickers made only 63 per cent of field goals from under 40 yards, and 49 per cent overall) and the 2018 figure surely is tops in the league’s 99-season history.

From 20- 29 yards out, kickers this past season made all but three of 208 attempts — a 98.6 per cent success rate, which broke the league’s season record of 98.1 per cent for that increment set in 2008.

Similarly, from 30 - 39 yards out, kickers last season set a new success record of 94.14 per cent (273-of-290), eclipsing the old mark of 94.12 per cent set in 2015.

From all distances, placekickers last season made 84.7 per cent of their fieldgoal attempts. That’s the second best percentage in league annals, after 86.5 per cent in 2013.

Conversely, placekickers weren’t as good in 2018 from 40-plus yards out.

From 40- 49 they made 224- of-294, a 76.2 per cent success rate; only one other time since 2012 have kickers en masse converted fewer than 77.4 per cent from that distance.

And from 50-plus yards, kickers made 63.8 per cent (97-of-152) of their field-goal attempts, a big drop from the previous year’s record of 69.5 per cent.

Among other principal take- aways from the 2018 numbers?

One could argue that moving the extra-point distance from 20 yards out to 33 a few years ago has given kickers much more practice from that distance, which in part could explain the record success in 2018 from 30-39.

Perhaps more than anything, these 2018 stats shine a critical spotlight on kickers whose success rates did not meet the overall league average of 84.7 per cent.

GOSTKOWSKI IN DECLINE?

The most surprising kicker to finish below 2018’s 84.7 per cent threshold was New England’s Stephen Gostkowski.

The 35-year-old has been the Patriots’ placekicker since replacing Adam Vinatieri in 2006 as a fourthround draft pick.

In those 13 seasons Gostkowski has been spectacular.

He ranks first in NFL history in scoring 8.7 points per game, has led the NFL in scoring in a record-tying five seasons, has been named to the Pro Bowl four times, earned All-Pro recognition twice, hasn’t missed a game since 2010, has booted eight game- winning field goals, is the NFL’s No. 12 all-time leading scorer in the regular season (1,743 points) and No. 2 in the playoffs ( 205 points), and he owns the third-best career field-goal success rate in NFL history (87.4 per cent, minimum 50 attempts).

But 2018 was only the third year in which Gostkowski’s field-goal success rate did not exceed the league average. And his timing could not be worse.

The four- year, $ 17.2- million contract he signed in 2015 expires March 13.

It’s no secret Patriots head coach and de facto football czar Bill Belichick won’t hesitate to move on from a veteran player the nanosecond his performance begins to decline.

Well, consider that in 2018 Gostkowski’s longest made field goal was 52 yards, whereas 24 other NFL kickers made one from farther out.

Just a year earlier, Gostkowski made kicks from 62 and 58 yards — the two longest of his career — and he posted the third-best overall single- season success percentage of his career ( 92.5 per cent).

So was 2018 just a blip for Gostkowski or the first long steps into regression?

Don’t be surprised if Belichick and the Pats decide to turn the page, and either draft a kicker — say, stronglegged Austin Seibert of Oklahoma University, who made 89.5 per cent of his field goals ( 17- of-19) as a senior — or make a strong pitch to woo free-agent-to-be Wil Lutz of the New Orleans Saints, who’s only 25 and made 28- of- 30 field goals ( 93.3 per cent) in 2018, including 6-of-8 from 50-plus yards.

OTHERS IN THE HUNT?

Besides Gostkowski, these veteran kickers finished 2018 with belowaverage field- goal success rates, some surprisingly so: Jake Elliott of Philadelphia ( 83.9 per cent), Sebastian Janikowski of Seattle ( 81.5 per cent), Mason Crosby of Green Bay ( 81.1 per cent), Brett Maher of Dallas (80.6 per cent), Brandon McManus of Denver (80.0 per cent), Stephen Hauschka of Buffalo (78.6 per cent), Cody Parkey of Chicago (76.7 per cent), Dan Bailey of Minnesota ( 75.0 per cent) and Chris Boswell of Pittsburgh (65.0 per cent).

What do most of them have in common?

Struggling from beyond 39 yards, compared to those with above-average success.

Gostkowski made just 54.5 per cent from 40-plus, McManus 64.3 per cent, Hauschka 64.7 per cent, Parkey 71.4 per cent, Bailey 45.5 per cent, and Boswell 54.5 per cent.

Stephen Gostkowski