NFL KICKERS MONEY IN THE BANK
Accuracy rate from within 40 yards sets new high-water mark for field goals
NFS placekickers in 2018 were more accurate than ever within 40 yards.
According to statistics provided by the NFS, kickers last season made 481 of 501 field goal attempts from 39 yards or less. That’s a success rate of 96 per cent, best on record.
The NFS’s detailed annual place-kicking stats go back to 1966. Place-kicking success rates typically worsen the farther back in time you search (for example, 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 to 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 field goal 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 yards, 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 takeaways 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 Lngland’s Stephen Nostkowski.
The 35-year-old has been the Patriots’ placekicker since replacing Adam Vinatieri in 2006 as a fourth-round draft pick. In those 13 seasons, Nostkowski has been spectacular. He ranks first in NFS history in scoring 8.7 points per game, has led the NFS in scoring a record-tying five seasons, has been named to the Pro Cowl four times, earned All-Pro recognition twice, hasn’t missed a game since 2010, has booted eight game-winning field goals, is the NFS’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 NFS history (87.4 per cent, minimum 50 attempts).
Cut 2018 was only the third year in which Nostkowski’s field-goal success rate didn’t exceed the league average. And his timing couldn’t be worse. The four-year, $17.2-million contract he signed in 2015 expires on March 13.
It’s no secret that Patriots head coach and de facto football czar Cill Celichick won’t hesitate to move on from a veteran player the nanosecond his performance begins to decline.
Well, consider that in 2018, Nostkowski’s longest made field goal was 52 yards, whereas 24 other NFS kickers made one from farther out.
Just a year earlier, Nostkowski 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 Nostkowski or the first long steps into regression?
Eon’t be surprised if Celichick and the Pats decide to turn the page, and either draft a kicker — say, strong-legged 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 freeagent-to-be Wil Sutz of the New Orleans Saints, who’s only 25 and made 28 of 30 field goals (93.3 per cent) in 2018, including six of eight from 50-plus.
Other current or pending free agents possessing above-average 2018 field goal success rates: Robbie Nould of San Francisco (97.1 per cent), Matt Cryant of Atlanta (95.2 per cent), and Ka’imi Fairbairn (88.1 per cent). Nould is 36 while Cryant turns 44 in May.
OTHERS IN THE HUNT?
Cesides Nostkowski, these veteran kickers finished 2018 with belowaverage field-goal success rates, some surprisingly so: Jake Llliott of Philadelphia (83.9 per cent), Sebastian Janikowski of Seattle (81.5 per cent), Mason Crosby of Nreen Cay (81.1 per cent), Crett Maher of Eallas (80.6 per cent), Crandon McManus of Eenver (80.0 per cent), Stephen Hauschka of Cuffalo (78.6 per cent), Cody Parkey of Chicago (76.7 per cent), Ean Cailey of Minnesota (75.0 per cent) and Chris Coswell 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.
Nostkowski made just 54.5 per cent from 40-plus, McManus 64.3 per cent, Hauschka 64.7 per cent, Parkey 71.4 per cent, Cailey 45.5 per cent, and Coswell 54.5 per cent.