Football Are NFL kickers becoming too good?

Deberg_1990 · 09-14-2012, 09:00 AM

Akers kicks a 63 yearder.....Kaeding went 5 for 5....

Why are the Chiefs still stuck with a guy who struggles with 41 yarders?

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports...ld_goals_.html

in Week 1 kickers made 67 of 72 field-goal attempts, or 93 percent. Oh, and the 49ers’ David Akers became the fourth kicker—after Tom Dempsey in 1970, Jason Elam in 1998, and Sebastian Janikowski last year—to kick a 63-yarder. He also became the fifth active NFL kicker to make one from beyond 60.

I’ve written before that the improvement in NFL kicking since the 1970s is one of the greatest non-equipment-aided performance leaps in any sport. Today’s kickers are bigger, stronger, physically and mentally better conditioned, and, most important, more technically sophisticated than their counterparts in the early days of the “sidewinder” or “soccer-style” kicker. This guy, for one, wouldn’t sniff the field today.

Kickers are so good now—more precisely, the distance from which they can score three points and their accuracy from all distances has increased to such a degree—that NFL coaches use them more than ever. NFL teams attempted a record 1,011 field goals in 2011, which works out to about four attempts per game. In 1984, the figure was 3.5 FG/G. In 1974, it was 3.0. As kickers have improved, the NFL has tried to make their job harder: in 1974, moving the goalposts to the rear of the end zone; in 1995, placing the ball at the spot of the kick instead of the line of scrimmage after a missed FG; in 1999, making them boot new, hard K balls.

09-14-2012, 09:00 AM	Topic Starter
Deberg_1990 In Search of a Life Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Antonio Tx. Casino cash: $3914454	Are NFL kickers becoming too good? Akers kicks a 63 yearder.....Kaeding went 5 for 5.... Why are the Chiefs still stuck with a guy who struggles with 41 yarders? http://www.slate.com/articles/sports...ld_goals_.html in Week 1 kickers made 67 of 72 field-goal attempts, or 93 percent. Oh, and the 49ers’ David Akers became the fourth kicker—after Tom Dempsey in 1970, Jason Elam in 1998, and Sebastian Janikowski last year—to kick a 63-yarder. He also became the fifth active NFL kicker to make one from beyond 60. I’ve written before that the improvement in NFL kicking since the 1970s is one of the greatest non-equipment-aided performance leaps in any sport. Today’s kickers are bigger, stronger, physically and mentally better conditioned, and, most important, more technically sophisticated than their counterparts in the early days of the “sidewinder” or “soccer-style” kicker. This guy, for one, wouldn’t sniff the field today. Kickers are so good now—more precisely, the distance from which they can score three points and their accuracy from all distances has increased to such a degree—that NFL coaches use them more than ever. NFL teams attempted a record 1,011 field goals in 2011, which works out to about four attempts per game. In 1984, the figure was 3.5 FG/G. In 1974, it was 3.0. As kickers have improved, the NFL has tried to make their job harder: in 1974, moving the goalposts to the rear of the end zone; in 1995, placing the ball at the spot of the kick instead of the line of scrimmage after a missed FG; in 1999, making them boot new, hard K balls.
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