Typically with kickers, the better scorers come from the better teams. Teams win games by scoring points, after all, so when a team is winning a bunch of games, its kicker is usually scoring a healthy chunk of points.
There are exceptions, of course. Mason Crosby has been pretty crappy recently for some good Green Bay teams – the offense there has tended to score touchdowns rather than settling for field goals.
But in general, if you can latch onto a team that’s going to win 11-plus games, good chance you can harvest 120-plus points from that kicker. If you’re saddled with an NFL team that will lose 11-plus games, the risk of finishing with fewer than 100 kicking points goes way up.
The league went to 32 teams in 2002. Since that time, the correlation has been almost perfect. At this position, it’s generally better to look at the quality of the team, rather than whether the individual player might hit 80, 85 or 90 percent of his field goals.
Not a big surprise, therefore, that Stephen Gostkowski has tended to be the best kicker over the last 10 years. The Patriots have tended to win the most games, getting him on the field for more scoring opportunities.
| AVERAGE KICKING POINTS | |
|---|---|
| W-L | Points |
| 16-0 | 137.0 |
| 15-1 | 136.7 |
| 14-2 | 123.3 |
| 13-3 | 133.8 |
| 12-4 | 129.9 |
| 11-5 | 121.9 |
| 10-6 | 119.5 |
| 9-7 | 115.1 |
| 8-8 | 113.9 |
| 7-9 | 104.5 |
| 6-10 | 105.5 |
| 5-11 | 96.7 |
| 4-12 | 96.8 |
| 3-13 | 92.6 |
| 2-14 | 89.3 |
| 1-15 | 82.7 |
| 0-16 | 79.0 |
—Ian Allan