EARLIER THIS YEAR I watched one of my best friends, Paul Hosford formerly of TheJournal.ie, nail a 32-yard field goal that not only won the his team the game, but also clinched the Irish American Football Association IAFL 1 title for the Dublin Rhinos.
It was a high pressure kick but, he told me afterwards, he never felt like he was going to miss because he treated it the same as any kick he’d attempt in training or a regular season game. Line up your shoulders, plant your foot, and follow through.
It’s simple really.
And yet, if you were watching the NFL this weekend, it can’t have escaped your attention that well-paid — albeit well-paid relative to you and I and not their team-mates — professionals found it very hard indeed.
All told, there were 19 missed kicks on Sunday between field goals and extra point attempts.
The most high-profile misses involved Cleveland’s Zane Gonzalez, Minnesota’s Daniel Carlson, and the Packers’ Mason Crosby.
Gonzalez — who had a game-winning kick blocked last week — shanked two extra points and two field goals (worth a total of eight points) in his team’s three-point loss to the Saints, ensuring their 600+ day wait for a win goes on.
In the Vikings v Green Bay game, Crosby missed a potential game-winner in the fourth quarter, sending it to overtime, while Carlson missed two of his own in the extra innings.
But there were other, less notable but no less important misses. The Broncos beat the Raiders by a point after earlier blocking Mike Nugent’s PAT, while Ka’imi Fairbairn’s missed 54–yard effort was the difference between Houston and Tennessee.
So you can see why it’s easy to hate kickers.
Personally, on no less than six occasions in the past two years, I have called for kicking to be banned from the sport, but I’ve never actually meant it. There are three facets to football; offence, defence, and special teams. Kicking plays a massive part in the latter and the sport would be worse off for its loss.
You see, the thing is, kickers aren’t actually that bad, at least not at the NFL level. Last year, 84.32% of field goals were made while 94% of extra points found their way between the posts.
By way of contrast, Drew Brees was the only quarterback with a completion rate in excess of 70%
I know, of course, that I’m comparing apples and oranges here, but the point I’m trying to make is that we judge kickers by a different standard than other players.
That’s partly, I think, because unlike accurately firing a 40-yard pass into double coverage, a lot of people think they could hit a field goal from the same distance.
I’m sure, off a kicking tee, most adults could manage it.
But there’s a massive difference between that and timing your approach perfectly so you’re planting your foot as the holder catches the snap, making sure your shoulders are lined up square with the posts, and focusing on keeping your follow through as straight as possible.
Oh, and doing all that while 11 250lb-plus men are trying to get to you to block the kick.
One of the longest serving kickers in the game is Adam Vinatieri who, at 45, is still making kicks in the NFL with the Indianapolis Colts.
Vinatieri, of course, is responsible for two of Tom Brady’s record five Vince Lombardi trophies thanks to with last-second field goals during his time with the Patriots.
He is also responsible for, perhaps, the most iconic clutch kick ever with his 45-yard winner against the Oakland Raiders in the snow to complete New England’s robbery of the ‘Tuck Rule’ game.
So he knows a thing or two about kicking.
He makes the point that defensive linemen can play 50 snaps a game and if they have three bad plays, few people might notice. If a kicker has three bad kicks, more often than not they find themselves looking for a new job.
When Vinatieri first started playing football, the average field goal percentage was about 75%. As we saw last year, that has shot up to 84%. That happens to be the Colts kicker’s career average, and his extra point average is a phenomenal 98.2% with 13 perfect seasons so far in his life as a professional.
But, as Dan Bailey found out when the Cowboys cut him earlier this year, even having longevity and accuracy is no guarantee of a place on an NFL roster. A few bad games and there are a dozen guys ready to take you place.
And, while this weekend was particularly noticeable, there’ll be other game weeks when nearly every extra point and field goal is made and we won’t even give kickers a second thought.
Such is life in the most thankless position in sports.
So the next time you find yourself throwing your arms up in despair, shouting ‘I could have made that’ at your television, try to remember that kickers are people too.
And they’re never as bad as you think they are.
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