Value of a Kicker

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
Having a great kicker vs. having a bad kicker is probably worth 1-2 wins a year to most teams.

A really awesome teams who blows everyone out or a really terrible team that always gets blown out, the effect is lessened.

Teams that have several close games a year, which is most, kicking has a bigger impact on.

[/ QUOTE ]

But there's not much difference between an ok kicker and a great kicker. Bad kickers don't last too long. I think kickers are more scapegoats than anything. They play solidly for a couple years, then blow one or 2 kicks and get canned. Then go on to a prolific career somewhere else while the original team revolves the door for kickers, all that are mostly the same, when the original one would've done just as well, maybe even better than all the other replacements. See that type of thing year after year. Makes you wonder, why even get rid of the guy?

In the golf bag of football, kickers are the putters. It's still usually operator error. But many times players blame their putter and buy a new one when the putter is perfectly fine. God forbid its some other part of their game that needs work.

b

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
Is there any research on angling punts and coffin corner attempts? I figure a good coffin corner punter must add something to a team.

[/ QUOTE ]

This ESPN.com article discusses why coffin-corner kicks are so rare.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

I think there is a good argument to be made for never kicking to good punt returners. the pats basically did this for a few games in a row this season

[Triumph36]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is there any research on angling punts and coffin corner attempts? I figure a good coffin corner punter must add something to a team.

[/ QUOTE ]

This ESPN.com article discusses why coffin-corner kicks are so rare.

[/ QUOTE ]

cool article. i miss mike horan.

[VarlosZ]

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I think there is a good argument to be made for never kicking to good punt returners. the pats basically did this for a few games in a row this season

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FO just went into kicking away from Devin Hester (after the ratings tables), but they don't talk about punting away from him, unfortunately.

My guess would be that for punting away to be a good strategy, three things must be true: your punter has to be relatively inaccurate (so there's a good chance he'll shank it for a 15-yarder), your coverage teams have to suck, and the returner has to be really good.

Even then it's close. The large majority of punt returns are either fair catches or go for less than, say, five yards. The situation bette be pretty dire before you tamper with a pretty safe play.

[Jack of Arcades]

Doesn't Hester fumble nearly as often as he take it to the house?

[VarlosZ]

Apparently, yeah. Also, I forgot to mention that sometimes the ball comes in at such an angle that the returner can't field it and it rolls 15 yards past him.

Yes, something awful could happen if you kick it right to an excellent return guy, but the kick away proponents always seem to ignore the opportunity costs of the strategy: something great could happen, too.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

I hate to qoute TMQ on the subject, but here is what he said. I would gather it's more complicated than he makes it out to be, but...

"Last year in the NFL, the average punt traveled 43.2 yards, the average return gained 8.7 yards, so on average, a returned punt netted 34.5 yards. Some punts are fair-caught; adding them in, the 2006 net average was about 37 yards. An angled punt intended to go out of bounds will travel less distance than a punt boomed down the middle, but TMQ is guessing that if punters practiced deliberately kicking out of bounds, they could average putting the ball out of bounds 32 to 35 yards down the field, roughly the 2006 net. So constantly punting out of bounds would surrender approximately the same field position, but the chance of a touchdown return would be eliminated. And there were 15 punts returned for touchdowns in the NFL regular season last year, plus another six already this season.


Deliberately punting out of bounds might not always be advised; there could be circumstances that suggest a maximum boom. But often punting out of bounds seems like a desirable strategy yet to be tried. Evidence? I'll supply what you have come to expect from TMQ -- lavish praise of Bill Belichick. When the Flying Elvii played the Bills, Belichick had punter Chris Hanson deliberately angle the ball out of bounds to keep it away from Parrish. Hanson averaged a net of just 30 yards, but Parish did nothing: on balance, a good outcome for New England"

[gusmahler]

[ QUOTE ]
I hate to qoute TMQ on the subject, but here is what he said. I would gather it's more complicated than he makes it out to be, but...

[/ QUOTE ]
I would guess that the ESPN.com article Dynasty linked to earlier ( http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/column...amp;id=3111471 ) was more thoroughly researched, since TMQ didn't seem to actually do any real research.