Robbie Gould announced his retirement on Thursday. He bagged a lot of field goals during his 18 years in the league. He also serves as evidence that the kicker position is one better addressed in free agency rather than the draft.
Gould, Justin Tucker, Adam Vinatieri, Phil Dawson. All entered the league not through the draft but as undrafted free agents. In Gould’s case, he kicked collegiately at Penn State. He played 11 seasons with the Bears, with one Super Bowl appearance. After playing 10 games with the Giants in 2016, he spent his final six seasons with the 49ers, with another Super Bowl season.
Gould converted 36 of his 51 career attempts from 50-plus, which was outstanding for his era. Most impressively, he made all 68 of his postseason kicks (39 extra points and 29 field goals, including 4 from 50-plus). Vinatieri tends to be overhyped as “the best clutch kicker in the history of the game”, but he made only 56 of his 69 field goal attempts in playoff games (82 percent).
But I digress. The point here is that NFL teams can find kickers. In the 32-team era (since 2002) there have been 39 kickers who’ve kicked at least 200 field goals. Of those 39, only 14 entered the league through the college player draft (I’ve got those guys tagged with black dots).
KICKERS WITH 200 FIELD GOALS (since 2002) | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Player | Rd | FGM | FGA | Pct |
Robbie Gould | FA | 447 | 517 | 86.5% |
Adam Vinatieri | FA | 439 | 516 | 85.1% |
Matt Bryant | FA | 397 | 464 | 85.6% |
Phil Dawson | FA | 397 | 472 | 84.1% |
• Mason Crosby | 6th | 395 | 485 | 81.4% |
Matt Prater | FA | 393 | 471 | 83.4% |
• Stephen Gostkowski | 4th | 392 | 454 | 86.3% |
• Sebastian Janikowski | 1st | 391 | 482 | 81.1% |
Justin Tucker | FA | 384 | 427 | 89.9% |
• Nick Folk | 6th | 377 | 451 | 83.6% |
David Akers | FA | 328 | 405 | 81.0% |
Graham Gano | FA | 324 | 387 | 83.7% |
• Ryan Succop | 7th | 320 | 386 | 82.9% |
• Josh Brown | 7th | 319 | 380 | 83.9% |
• Greg Zuerlein | 6th | 318 | 383 | 83.0% |
Jay Feely | FA | 303 | 365 | 83.0% |
Shayne Graham | FA | 271 | 316 | 85.8% |
Rian Lindell | FA | 271 | 328 | 82.6% |
• Mike Nugent | 2nd | 265 | 327 | 81.0% |
Stephen Hauschka | FA | 264 | 310 | 85.2% |
Jason Hanson | FA | 256 | 300 | 85.3% |
Dan Bailey | FA | 249 | 290 | 85.9% |
Brandon McManus | FA | 247 | 302 | 81.8% |
• Josh Scobee | 5th | 241 | 301 | 80.1% |
Rob Bironas | FA | 239 | 279 | 85.7% |
Dan Carpenter | FA | 236 | 281 | 84.0% |
• Neil Rackers | 6th | 235 | 281 | 83.6% |
Ryan Longwell | FA | 230 | 272 | 84.6% |
• John Kasay | 4th | 230 | 275 | 83.6% |
Chris Boswell | FA | 225 | 259 | 86.9% |
Jason Myers | FA | 220 | 259 | 84.9% |
Olindo Mare | FA | 220 | 278 | 79.1% |
• Dustin Hopkins | 6th | 220 | 257 | 85.6% |
• Randy Bullock | 5th | 214 | 256 | 83.6% |
Jeff Reed | FA | 213 | 259 | 82.2% |
Shaun Suisham | FA | 211 | 251 | 84.1% |
Cairo Santos | FA | 208 | 244 | 85.2% |
Matt Stover | FA | 204 | 235 | 86.8% |
• Jason Elam | 3rd | 201 | 243 | 82.7% |
—Ian Allan