playit12
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This is not a thread about Field Goals... that I think has been well discussed already and will continue to be elsewhere.
Watching the Indy game recently, I was struck by how poor Vinatieri was doing on his kickoffs. Some people might recall several pundits saying that besides the "clutchness" factor, the main difference was that by picking up Vinatieri, the Colts no longer required a Kickoff Specialist on the game day roster. Vanderjagt routinely ranked last or near last in kickoff distance as measured by the NFL and thus was slammed by the media looking for a reason to roast the idiot kicker.
But kickoff distance is a misleading stat. Just as punt distance tells only part of the story about a punters performance, so too does kickoff distance. High kickoffs give the cover team more time to traverse the field, while shorter kicks also leave the defense less time to prepare their wedge and returners less time to see the field and accelerate. The end result are competing forces for average starting field position. Of course, this begs the question... how has Mike been doing?
To answer this I looked up every kick Mike, Scott, and our Opponents have made this season. I'll get to the data shortly, but I did have to make several adjustments to weed out non-relavent, and likewise non-predictive, data points.
This data will therefor be different then what you might find elsewhere. However I think the results are more predictave of true performance. Also, by only using our opponents averages, I am trying to include the weather, dome, and wind effects in the results. All kickers are in the same conditions.
The only problem with this result is that I was not able to account for kicking direction. That is, I could not tell from the game logs who was kicking into the wind in each kick. Also, wind conditions can and certainly do change from the start of the game till the end. Hopefully, however, these results will average out over the large sample size.
So the results!!!!
Mike's net average over opponent was -.4 yard
while Scott's net ave over oppoent was +.1 yard.
So Scott gave us a net gain of 0.5 a yard per kick over the opponents average. That's a difference of about 3 yards in field position per game. Not exactly worthy of a roster spot.
Of course, while Scott only kicked 1 more kickoff than his opponents in the 3 games he played. Mike actually kicked off 15 more times (thanks Romo) in 8 games. I'm not sure if kickers get tired by the end, but it certainly is something to keep in mind.
Mike also had two kickoffs fumbled by the opposition and recovered by the Cowboys, while Scott had no recovered fumbles but gave up the loan touch down on a deep kick into the endzone in week two.
On the famed Mike v Adam game... Mike had an average field position of the 30 yard line while Adam was at the 32 yard line. A net gain of 2 yards for Mike.
*** I'm not going to edit the whole post, but Scott should be Shaun, for those that didn't figure that out already ***
Watching the Indy game recently, I was struck by how poor Vinatieri was doing on his kickoffs. Some people might recall several pundits saying that besides the "clutchness" factor, the main difference was that by picking up Vinatieri, the Colts no longer required a Kickoff Specialist on the game day roster. Vanderjagt routinely ranked last or near last in kickoff distance as measured by the NFL and thus was slammed by the media looking for a reason to roast the idiot kicker.
But kickoff distance is a misleading stat. Just as punt distance tells only part of the story about a punters performance, so too does kickoff distance. High kickoffs give the cover team more time to traverse the field, while shorter kicks also leave the defense less time to prepare their wedge and returners less time to see the field and accelerate. The end result are competing forces for average starting field position. Of course, this begs the question... how has Mike been doing?
To answer this I looked up every kick Mike, Scott, and our Opponents have made this season. I'll get to the data shortly, but I did have to make several adjustments to weed out non-relavent, and likewise non-predictive, data points.
- I removed all intentional squib kicks from all kickers.
- I counted all Touchbacks the same as starting at the 20 yard line.
- I included lost fumbles at the point of the fumble. This was generally the point at which the returner would have been tackled had they not fumbled.
- I did not use kickoffs that were not from the 30 yard line, for instance because of penalties before the kickoff or kicks after a safety.
- I did not include onside kicks
- I decided to use the final starting point for all positions where the recieving team committed a penalty (holding for instance).
- I decided to use the pre-penalty field position for all kicking team infractions (late hits generally).
This data will therefor be different then what you might find elsewhere. However I think the results are more predictave of true performance. Also, by only using our opponents averages, I am trying to include the weather, dome, and wind effects in the results. All kickers are in the same conditions.
The only problem with this result is that I was not able to account for kicking direction. That is, I could not tell from the game logs who was kicking into the wind in each kick. Also, wind conditions can and certainly do change from the start of the game till the end. Hopefully, however, these results will average out over the large sample size.
So the results!!!!
- Scott had an average starting field position of the 29.4 line.
- His opponents were at the 29.3 line.
- Mike had an average starting field position of the 26.3 yard line.
- His Opponents were at the 25.9 line.
Mike's net average over opponent was -.4 yard
while Scott's net ave over oppoent was +.1 yard.
So Scott gave us a net gain of 0.5 a yard per kick over the opponents average. That's a difference of about 3 yards in field position per game. Not exactly worthy of a roster spot.
Of course, while Scott only kicked 1 more kickoff than his opponents in the 3 games he played. Mike actually kicked off 15 more times (thanks Romo) in 8 games. I'm not sure if kickers get tired by the end, but it certainly is something to keep in mind.
Mike also had two kickoffs fumbled by the opposition and recovered by the Cowboys, while Scott had no recovered fumbles but gave up the loan touch down on a deep kick into the endzone in week two.
On the famed Mike v Adam game... Mike had an average field position of the 30 yard line while Adam was at the 32 yard line. A net gain of 2 yards for Mike.
*** I'm not going to edit the whole post, but Scott should be Shaun, for those that didn't figure that out already ***
