How many games do you think Bret Maher will cost us this season?
I’m setting the imaginary line at 2 games.
Thots?
Compared to what?
Let's work through this.
Given the distribution of Maher's attempts last year, he missed 1.53 more FGs from 30-39 than you would expect from an average kicker and 1.39 more FGs from 40-49. He made 1.53 more FGs from 50+ than you would expect from the average kicker, and 0.90 more XPs. Add it all up, and (again given his distribution of attempts), he cost us 3.3 points versus what we would expect from an average kicker. That's 0.2 points per game, but it probably makes more sense to think of it as:
Maher missed one field goal that an average kicker would have made.
The next question is, what's the likelihood that that missed field goal costs a game? Dallas played 7 games (including playoffs) decided by 3 points or less, so maybe you'd expect him to cost us as much as 7/18 (39%) of one game. But leaguewide, only 29% of games are decided by 3 points or less, so we'd expect that number to go down this year (especially since we already have two games under our belt that didn't come down to that margin).
So that's my answer. Maybe Maher costs us 29% of one game over the course of the season.
