Comments on Advanced NFL Stats: Improved FG Kicker Ranking

KA-No doubt those things matter, especially on any...

2009-01-28T13:03:00.000-05:00

KA-No doubt those things matter, especially on any one particular kick. But the results suggest that in aggregate, over the course of an entire season, those things tend to even out.

I'm a bit late but the weather is a large factor. ...

2009-01-28T12:51:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit late but the weather is a large factor. Consider Robbie Gould's game where the wind was so nasty that his attempt basically did a 90 and was missed. Kicking in cold weather versus warm make little difference. Wind, rain and snow should play a large part I would think.

Another part of kicking you do not deal with is the holder. Hard to gauge this but if the holder fails to place the ball properly then the odds of missing increase.

KA

James-Great question. One big distinction up front...

2008-12-02T12:19:00.000-05:00

James-Great question. One big distinction up front-I excluded Vanderjagt's single perfect season, not Vanderjagt's entire career.

Also, and more to the point, is that Vanderjagt's 2003 season posed a particularly difficult challenge in mathematical terms. His expected accuracy would be infinite because he had zero misses. (Dickerson's seasons did not present a similar problem.) When you add an infinite case to other "normal" non-infinite cases, the average is going to be distorted greatly.

I did this primarily to establish a reasonable baseline for kickers in general, and not in an attempt to prove or disprove a theory. After establishing a baseline and went back to grade Vanderjagt's perfect season, I fully credited him with his actual performance.

The Dickerson exclusion in the "Curse" is a different thing. He's excluded precisely and solely because he disproves the point.

I just read your article on the "Curse of 370", an...

2008-12-02T11:17:00.000-05:00

I just read your article on the "Curse of 370", and you mentioned that you cannot leave the outlier (Eric Dickerson) out of the data. In this analysis, you did just that by excluding Vanderjagt's perfect year. Please explain. Great website by the way -- just found it today and it is very interesting.

I'm not a statistics buff but this study also appe...

2008-11-22T20:22:00.000-05:00

I'm not a statistics buff but this study also appears to indicate that in general coaches are far too conservative when it comes to kicking a field goal, going for it on 4th down or punting. Especially this year I've seen teams trying to convert on fourth down when they are inside the 38 yard line. I generally consider the 38 to be the edge of field goal range, this is not based on any statistics just my personal belief that a NFL kicker should be dependable from 55 yards or less.

What if any impact did blocks or missed holds have...

2008-09-19T13:10:00.000-04:00

What if any impact did blocks or missed holds have. They happen rarely in the NFL but was a block considered a miss and if so were some excluded when the kick was good enough to clear a standard line situation. What about slow snaps and bad holds, where the ball was tilted wrong or positioned obviously wrong. I was a kicker so I know these things can really factor in but probably on have a negligible effect at the NFL level.

Tarr-I was considering adding an addtional dummy v...

2007-09-26T16:05:00.000-04:00

Tarr-I was considering adding an addtional dummy variable for Denver, but there's only been one kicker home-based there during the data period. So it would capture Elam's individual performance within the stadium variable.

And it gets even more complicated than just individual stadiums. You'd really have to model the wind, temp, etc. for each kick. Just saying "Giants Stadium" averages out the conditions for every game there. Some days it could be storming, on others it could be a sunny day with a calm breeze.

This is a tough nut to crack, but what I have so far is (hopefully) light years better than simple FG accuracy percentage. It's also why I decided to leave the variables in the final model despite their non-significance.

Perhaps the indoor/warm weather factors would be m...

2007-09-26T15:35:00.000-04:00

Perhaps the indoor/warm weather factors would be more significant if you considered where each kick took place, as oppose to just applying one factor to a kicker based on his home field. Ideal would be to model every stadium seperately, although that's a ton of work and the data might be too sparse.

I believe FO has three kicking locations: Denver, Florida, and everywhere else. Maybe indoor as well; I don't remember.

Jon-The difference between -0.016 and -0.024 is mi...

2007-09-26T09:52:00.000-04:00

Jon-The difference between -0.016 and -0.024 is miniscule over the course of one season. It would only be about 0.08 of a field goal (about 0.24 points over 16 games). You could consider them both average. Additionally, they had nearly identical average attempt distances, so it would be easy to compare their accuracy rates directly.

pf-I've heard that about Heinz Field too. It would...

2007-09-26T09:33:00.000-04:00

pf-I've heard that about Heinz Field too. It would be interesting to compare Steelers kickers performance home vs. away using this method.

So, in the revised numbers, #28 Tynes (-.016) is b...

2007-09-26T05:59:00.000-04:00

So, in the revised numbers, #28 Tynes (-.016) is better than #32 Feely (-.024), even if just marginally. Maybe Jerry Reese does know what he's doing. Maybe.

Nice work. One thing I noticed is that the Steele...

2007-09-24T22:29:00.000-04:00

Nice work. One thing I noticed is that the Steeler's Jeff Reed is pretty low. Heinz field is notoriously tough for kickers, and I don't think Reed is any worse than opposing kickers there. I'm not sure if you have the data to account for it.

Another thing that might be cool is if an analogous analysis for kickoff ability. The charts could be combined by converting to an estimated point value.