Stat Dive: Who is the King of Field Goals?

I googled “shitty kicker”

For today’s stat-dive I wanted to look at the kicker position, inspired by my own outrage of course. I set out to see if my assumptions were right, and spoiler – they were. Let’s start with looking at just the base of the numbers, this first chart shows us how many points we’ve each gotten from our Kicker spot, and how much our opponents hurt us from there, beginning with the first five weeks of the year…

After Week 5

KICKER MATCHUPS	Points For	Points Against	Differ.
Jones	773	449	324
Ryan	773	541	232
Kaiser	1010	810	200
Chris	705	522	183
Kyle	660	515	145
Timmy	735	661	74
Dave	581	521	60
Matt	807	806	1
Trigger	483	658	-175
Josh	468	689	-221
Kronner	387	765	-378
Steve	403	788	-385

So after 5 games; Jones, Ryan and Kaiser had most benefited from the Kicker matchups, all displaying positive differentials of at least 200+. On the filp, we see Josh, Kronner and Steve all with at least a -200 score to this point. Overall though, only 8 teams find themselves on the wrong side of 0 here, meaning most of the league had a somewhat positive output to this point.

And the updated numbers after Week 12…

KICKER MATCHUPS	Points For	Points Against	Differ.	Kicker Totals
Kaiser	1765	1374	391	3139
Kyle	1781	1417	364	3198
Matt	1787	1448	339	3235
Dave	1259	1061	198	2320
Steve	1390	1288	102	2678
Chris	1400	1376	24	2776
Ryan	1486	1469	17	2955
Timmy	1350	1349	1	2699
Jones	1372	1417	-45	2789
Trigger	1423	1478	-55	2901
Josh	1241	1537	-296	2778
Kronner	1111	2091	-980	3202

With the updated numbers, we see only Kaiser still in the Top 3, but now instead of +200 scores, all the top teams have 300+ differentials. Balanced growth here would seem to imply that the bottom three should similarly be around -300, keeping on pace with where we were at Week 5. But instead,

we see the horror show that is the Special Teams Defense from the Mallrats.

Not only are the Mallrats the ONLY team with a -300 (though Josh really tried), but Kronner is pushing for a -1000. NEGATIVE ONE THOUSAND.

The level of consistency here is unbelievable. There is not another position on the team I can for sure count on to lose its individual matchup so often. And it’s not as though I’ve stood pat with some fucking loser who can’t kick. Throughout the year I’ve deployed 7 different kickers – 5 of them rank in the Top 10 for the year, including Nick Folk (K3) who got me all of 44 points the last time I started him. Of the two who aren’t Top Ten – Hopkins was the Chargers’ starter before going on the IR and Cade York has had several big games this year for the Browns.

But enough about my ~~nightmare~~ team, what else did this chart show us?

Jones, who had the best differential of anyone through five weeks, currently is ranked 8th, one of only four teams with a negative score. This is thanks to a tough run of games (weeks 6-8) where he lost the Kicker matchup by an average score of 213-72. But don’t worry, he got back on track in week 9 (against guess who) when he picked Nick Folk up off waivers and was rewarded with a 293-point game.

Headed the opposite way, you’ll notice Sanchez dead last in week 5 with a differential of -382, which by week 12 had blossomed into a respectable +102. When did he really turn things around? If you guessed “the week he played Kronner” – you’re the winner! Ahead of his showdown, and subsequent hammering of the Mallrats, Steve picked Tyler Bass up off waivers and was rewarded with a 425-point game.

So What Else Does This Tell Us?

Well, aside from just the raw PF vs PA numbers, which do seem to tell a story, there are some other numbers that might be more accurate. I mean, how much does a low-scoring kicker really meaning if you’re rolling people? And if you’re losing a ton, you’re probably getting gutted by several positions, not just kicker – right? Well, let’s find out!

Here we see the percentage of team scoring coming from the kicker spot.

RANK	KICKER MATCHUPS	Kicker Points For	Total Points For	Total Offense from Kicker
1	Kyle	1781	20492	8.691%
2	Kaiser	1765	23355	7.557%
3	Matt	1787	25308	7.061%
4	Timmy	1350	19443	6.943%
5	Ryan	1486	21968	6.764%
6	Trigger	1423	23203	6.133%
7	Steve	1390	23167	6.000%
8	Dave	1259	21419	5.878%
9	Chris	1400	24338	5.752%
10	Josh	1241	22406	5.539%
11	Jones	1372	25210	5.442%
12	Kronner	1111	21556	5.154%

So here we see Kyle, who has the 11th-ranked offense this season, sitting atop the board. No team’s kicker has been more valuable than The Tim Brady’s, who are getting close to 9% of their offense from that spot. That’s about 25% higher than what the average per-player number would be in a truly balanced system. With 15 players starting each week, about 6.6% should be all the weight your kick can be expected to lift. Kronner is obviously last here, at 5.1% – even with the 10th-ranked offense, where the kicker doesn’t need to score as much to make an impact, Kronner is still last here. 2nd lowest percentage is the Skippers at 5.4% – but their kickers have 261 more than the Mallrat kickers, but based on the total scored, they are almost as useless. Kaiser and Matt have also fair very well here.

RANK	KICKER MATCHUPS	Kicker Points Against	Total Points Against	Opp. Kicker Offense
1	Kronner	2091	22063	9.477%
2	Matt	1448	21213	6.826%
3	Josh	1478	22166	6.668%
4	Jones	1537	23587	6.516%
5	Steve	1469	22721	6.465%
6	Kyle	1374	21927	6.266%
7	Trigger	1376	22323	6.164%
8	Chris	1417	23016	6.157%
9	Kaiser	1417	23023	6.155%
10	Dave	1349	22679	5.948%
11	Ryan	1288	22683	5.678%
12	Timmy	1061	24422	4.344%

Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, I find out some sick son of a bitch is just straight-up shooting darts filled with steroids and cocaine directly into the legs of my opponents each week. 75% of the league is giving up between 5.9%-6.8% to the opposition kicker, while Tim’s team sucks so hard it’s creating a kicking vortex. The Mallrats 9.4% is evidence that not only are my kickers showing up still drunk from whatever date-rape-cultured frat party they attended the night before, but the opposition is actually sucking the talent from them during the game – it’s a whole a Space Jam situation.

So now this all adds up to a potentially fatal result for the Mallrats, who need to beat The Tim Bradys to secure a chance at the playoffs, since a win over Kaiser in Week 14 with the Colts on a BYE seems unlikely. It’s almost like the dickhead who made the schedule planned it to happen this way. The team that gives up the most points to Kickers is playing the team whose most valuable player is their kicker. Who schedules this shit anyway?!

*checks notes*