Factoid
When gauging the leg strength of kickers, you can look at longest field goals and accuracy on kicks beyond 50 yards.
You can also, however, look simply at kickoffs – average length and touchbacks. If a player can’t reach the end zone with his kickoffs, that’s a sign that he can’t kick the ball as far as other players at his position (and thus is less likely to hit on field goals from long range).
The below stats show the percentage of touchbacks for each kicker in the 2008 season. This data shows that field goal kickers with the strongest legs last year included Sebastian Janikowski, Olindo Mare, Rob Bironas and Matt Prater. Kickers who struggled on kickoffs last year included John Carney, Nick Folk, Matt Bryant and Ryan Longwell (though Longwell, kicking in a dome, managed to convert 6 field goals from 50-plus yards anyway).
Folk is perhaps the most interesting name on the list. He was poor on field goals last year, and now he’s undergone a hip surgery that could sidelin him until mid-August. That could affect his accuracy and already suspect range. That may be why Dallas used a draft pick on David Buehler of Southern Cal; the Cowboys potentially could use Buehler on kickoffs and use Folk (or some other player) only for field goals.
KICKERS WITH THE BEST TOUCHBACK PERCENTAGES
Among kickers with at least 30 kickoffs in 2008. Players tagged with asterisks (*) were kickoff specialists.
KO TB TB%
88 30 34% CAR *Rhys Lloyd
67 22 34% OAK Sebastian Janikowski
71 22 32% SEA Olindo Mare
85 22 26% TEN Rob Bironas
83 19 23% DEN Matt Prater
92 17 19% GB Mason Crosby
89 17 19% PHI David Akers
87 16 18% ATL *Michael Koenen
49 9 18% NO Garrett Hartley
66 12 18% CLE Phil Dawson
95 17 18% NE Stephen Gostkowski
90 15 18% ARI Neil Rackers
52 8 16% CIN Shayne Graham
66 10 16% JAC Josh Scobee
68 9 13% WAS Shaun Suisham
77 10 13% BUF Rian Lindell
78 9 12% SF Joe Nedney
66 8 12% STL Josh Brown
42 5 12% BAL Matt Stover
79 9 12% PIT Jeff Reed
79 9 12% CHI Robbie Gould
84 9 11% HOU Kris Brown
66 7 11% DET Jason Hanson
80 8 10% IND Adam Vinatieri
75 7 9% MIA Dan Carpenter
43 4 9% BAL *Steven Hauschka
80 7 9% NYJ Jay Feely
48 4 9% KC Connor Barth
92 8 9% SD Nate Kaeding
82 6 7% TB Matt Bryant
84 6 7% MIN Ryan Longwell
79 3 4% NYG John Carney
75 0 0% DAL Nick Folk
—Ian Allan
- Comments [0]
Readers' Comments
Add a Comment
Already a registered user? Please sign in to add comments.
To add comments, you must become a registered user of our site. To register, please click here.
