That NFL kickers are much better than they used to be is not a new development. The leaguewide percentage of made field goals rose steadily in the 2000s and again in the mid-2010s, to the point where kickers can now be expected to make around 84 or 85 percent of their field goals every season. […]
sara.ziegler (Sara Ziegler, sports editor): If Week 5 of the NFL season taught us anything, it’s that “place-kicker” is not a job for the faint of heart. Or perhaps it taught us (again) that leaving a game up to a kicker is a bad idea. In any case, our friends at ESPN’s Stats & Information […]
Garrison Smith wasn’t expecting an athletic scholarship when he became a placekicker. As soon as he started booting a football, the Ohio high school senior realized he had a knack for it. A soccer transplant, Smith wanted to continue his athletic career in football but had already accepted that he wouldn’t be receiving a full […]
Things got so bad on Monday night for newly signed Tennessee Titans kicker Stephen Gostkowski that the prospect of removing his pants before the final kick of the game wasn’t off the table. Gostkowski had already missed three field goals and an extra point against the Denver Broncos when the cameras caught him sitting on […]
For decades, NFL placekickers have been on a seemingly never-ending quest for perfection. Conversion rates increased relentlessly each year like numbers on the National Debt Clock. But a funny thing happened on the road to forever. The field-goal success rate this season is at its lowest level since 2003. And the decline of 4.2 percentage […]