Something to Keep An Eye On: Kicker Scoring

So there has been some concern expressed that the Kickers have become too powerful.

While I, having the Pre-Season Consensus #1 Kicker, Kansas City’s Harrison Butker, who has been mediocre thus far in 2020, dismissed this notion. However, I still felt it best to take a look at the numbers and see if there was any footing to the claim. 

Only 5 weeks in, 2020 is a small sample size, but it is a snapshot that we can look at. First, let’s look at the scoring changes…

FIELD GOAL MAKES
FG 0-19 yards – Was 40, Now 15+yardage (16-34 points)
FG 20-29 yards – Was 50, Now 20+yardage (40-49 points)
FG 30-39 yards – Was 60, Now 25+yardage (55-64 points)
FG 40-49 yards – Was 70, Now 30+yardage (70-79 points)
FG 50+ yards – Was 80, Now 35+yardage (85-99 points [NFL Record is 64 yards])

FIELD GOALS MISSED
FGM 0-19 yards – Was -40, Now -20
FGM 20-29 yards – Was -30, Now -15
FGM 30-39 yards – Was -20, Now -10
FGM 40-49 yards – Was -10, Now -5

POINT AFTER TOUCHDOWN
PAT – Was 5, Now 10
PAT Miss – Was -20, Now -10

As far as the PATs, we balanced out Makes and Misses. I didn’t think this was going to make such a notable difference, but last year Justin Tucker made 57 PATs, and missed 2. That accounted for 245 points over the course of the year. If he does the same this year, it’d be worth 550, good for about 19 points more per game.

FGs made seems like the biggest change, with short FGs worth fewer points, makes over 40 potentially worth a little more. I still like this as it’s more in line with our other scoring, and better rewards length of the make. 

The other difference in scoring lies is in the Miss category, where we cut the penalties in half. With fewer negative points aimed at kickers, it’s likely they will have more of a positive impact on games, which was our goal. For example, last season Greg Zuerlein lost 80 points to missed kicks, this year with the same results, he’d only lose 40. This too seems pretty inconsequential, as we’ve been lowering penalties for years now. 

 

Now, let’s look at some numbers…

The Top 12 Kickers in 2018 – Season Average

1. Ka’imi Fairbairn (169)
2. Justin Tucker (158)
3. Jason Myers (157)
4. Wil Lutz (146)
5. Mason Crosby (145)
6. Aldrick Rosas (141)
7. Robbie Gould (140)
8. Brett Maher (133)
9. Harrison Butker (129)
10. Matt Prater (128)
11. Stephen Gostkowski (127)
12. Dustin Hopkins (125)

The Top 12 Kickers in 2019 – Season Average

1. Younghoe Koo (197) [8 Games]
2. Harrison Butker (161)
3. Wil Lutz (156)
4. Justin Tucker (142)
5. Josh Lambo (137)
6. Matt Gay (135)
7. Brandon McManus (134)
8. Zane Gonzalez (129)
9. Joey Slye (126)
10. Chris Boswell (125)
11. Dan Bailey (124)
12. Matt Prater (124)

The Top 12 Kickers in 2020 – Season Average, 4 Game Minimums

1. Jason Sanders (205)
2. Rodrigo Blankenship (197)
3. Younghoe Koo (195)
4. Graham Gano (185)
5. Randy Bullock (185)
6. Stephen Gostkowski (181)
7. Mason Crosby (169)
8. Daniel Carlson (168)
9. Justin Tucker (168)
10. Joey Slye (160)
11. Cody Parkey (154)
12. Wil Lutz (148)

So, it looks like Koo is right where he was last year, and Lutz is actually a little lower, but the league average is up through 5 weeks. The difference only appears to be 20-30 points a game, which, as I said before, is likely due to the PATs. But let’s check that theory…

Let’s look at Jason Sanders, who though 5 games is averaging over 200. Those games include two weeks with over 300 points and two weeks with under 100 points (Week 2 being the outlier at 182). 

FGs	Made	Missed
0-19	0	0
20-29	4	0
30-39	2	0
40-49	6	0
50+	2	0
PATs	10	0

So comparing those totals to last year, here’s the difference…

2020 – 1025
2019 – 820

So clearly, here things are inflated here, by 205 points. And that comes from the fact that most of his FGs are from 40 yards out or more, and he has no misses. So he is perhaps an aberration.

Let’s look at another player, Rodrigo Blankenship.

FGs	Made	Missed
0-19	0	0
20-29	4	0
30-39	7	1
40-49	4	1
50+	0	0
PATs	11	0

2020 – 983
2019 – 805

So as we see here, these two kickers would have been only 15 points apart last year, but this year Sanders is up by 42. I’m gonna do one more, a bit further down the list and see where we’re at.

Here is my kicker, Harrison Butker. 

FGs	Made	Missed
0-19	1	1
20-29	2	0
30-39	3	0
40-49	0	1
50+	2	0
PATs	13	3

2020 – 583
2019 – 465

So around 118 points here, with the biggest difference coming in the PATs. Last year, going 13/16 on PATs was worth a total of 35 points, this year it got him 100. So what happens if we just look at the FGs made, and ignore misses and PATs? Here’s where those guys would be in 2019 and 2020 with just their FG makes.

Sanders – 925 in 2020, 720 in 2019
Blankenship – 873 in 2020, 900 in 2019
Butker – 483 in 2020, 480 in 2019

So here we see Sanders is still ahead, cause 8 of his 14 FGs are from 40 yards or more. But Blakenship is actually lower this year than he would have been in 2019, and Butker is basically the same. This is exactly how I wanted it to work, rewarding the longer FGs and not giving out as many easy points. 

So moving into 2021, if we want to discuss tweaking things again, it’s likely that the PATs and Misses are going to be the place to get that done. Of course, this is still a pretty small sample size, so we’ll know more by season’s end.