The NFL Doesn't Have a Kicking Problem

In the midst of Week 4 action Sunday, as it felt as though place-kickers were experiencing meltdowns in NFL stadiums across the country, former NFL kicker Jay Feely offered up an interesting explanation for why that might have been happening. 

Feely tweeted that with extra points coming from a longer distance in 2015, kickers are no longer able to get into grooves by utilizing those plays for what he called "in-game practice."

The whole thing seemed like a bit of a stretch. After all, field goals are about exactly as common as touchdowns and thus, kickers quite frequently aren't given shots at extra points (or "in-game practice") before attempting field goals. And there's that whole pregame warmup thing to consider, too. 

But what Feely was also failing to recognize is that during the first three weeks of the first season with the new extra point rules in place, kickers were making 84.9 percent of their attempts. Over the course of the year, that would actually be the second-highest rate in NFL history, almost a full percentage point above the 2014 rate of 84.0. 

Yes, that number dropped slightly with "only" 81.1 percent of kicks (60 of 74) going through the uprights in Week 4, but that missed kick total of 14 wasn't an anomaly. We actually had more missed kicks in Week 16 last season (16) and in Week 2 of the 2013 campaign (17). 

Year	Rate (%)
2015	83.8
2014	84.0
2013	86.5
2012	83.9
2011	82.9
2010	82.4
Average	83.9

If anything, Week 4 represented regression toward the mean.

• Last year, 36 field goals were missed in the first four weeks of the season as kickers nailed 84.7 percent of their attempts.
• In 2013, the most accurate kicking season in NFL history, 42 kicks were missed during the first four weeks, culminating in a league-wide opening-month rate of 82.7. 
• But through three weeks this year, we were on pace to have only 33 missed kicks during the first four weeks, which would have been extremely low. Instead, we wound up with a very reasonable 39 misses, which is right in between the totals from the previous two years. The rate of 83.8 is also right on track with recent early-season averages. 

So why does it feel as though kickers have been botching an exceptionally high number of kicks early this season? 

The first factor to consider is the narrative. Because the extra point has been moved back 13 yards, we're all watching kickers like hawks. A total of 17 extra points have been missed this season, which is twice as many as we had all of last season. Those missed PATs almost definitely make it feel as though we've seen a lot more missed field goals, but that's not the case. 

It also doesn't help that three big kicks were missed on national television, with Josh Scobee of the Pittsburgh Steelers missing two fourth-quarter attempts Thursday night at a stadium that is notoriously one of the hardest in the league to kick in, and Zach Hocker of the New Orleans Saints hitting the left upright on a short game-winning attempt Sunday night against Dallas. 

Another factor is the quality of the kickers. On Monday, Peter King of The MMQB suggested that the "trend" might have to do with "the youth at the position," noting that 12 of 32 teams have been using new kickers. Six of those 12 are rookies, and those six have accounted for exactly 33 percent of the league-wide misses thus far in 2015. 

We don't typically fault kickers too much for missing 53-yarders, which is why nobody has noticed that kickers this season have nailed a ridiculous 71.4 percent of their attempts from 50 yards or more—which is up more than 10 percentage points from last season and would be the highest rate in NFL history—because there have been so many misses on short- or mid-range attempts.

Year	Total	Success rate (%)
2015	101*	71.4
2013	96	67.1
2011	90	64.3
2008	66	63.4
2014	94	61.0

And a lot of those shorter misses have come from inexperienced guys like now-released Tampa Bay Buccaneers rookie Kyle Brindza (who has already missed four kicks from 43 yards or less) or Jacksonville Jaguars rookie Jason Myers (who has already missed two from 48 or less).

That doesn't fully explain why we've already seen nine misses from inside 40 yards, but even that isn't an out-of-wack number. After an unusually high five misses from 39 yards or less in Week 4, we're now on pace to have 36.6 misses from inside that distance in 2015. 

Exactly 36 were missed in each of the last two years. 

Year	Total	Success rate (%)
2015	36*	92.7
2014	36	93.6
2013	36	93.4
2012	41	92.4
2011	45	92.1
2010	45	92.1
Average	39	92.5

The first four weeks of last season were similar (seven rookies, eight misses from inside 40), and although only four rookie kickers took the field during the first four weeks of that historic 2013 season, there were still eight misses from within that distance during the first month. 

So nothing has changed. The first few weeks were just particularly good for kickers (at least on field goals), and the law of averages kicked in by punishing a few of them this past weekend. 

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.

Follow @Brad_Gagnon