In the summer of 2009, I wrote a three-part series analyzing every kicker of the last half-century (here are the links to Part I, Part II, Part III). What I did there was analyzed field goal attempts by distance, and then credited a kicker for how many field goals he made over the expected number of successful field goals from each distance.

For example, field goal kickers this year have made 15 of 23 attempts from exactly 50 yards. ^[1]There is some bias in the data in that only the best distance kickers attempts long field goals, but dealing with that is best left for another day. If we assume that 50-yard kicks are successful 65% of the time, then a made 50-yarder will be worth +0.35 field goals and a missed 50-yarder will be worth -0.65 field goals.

To smooth the data, I used kicks from 2005 to 2011, and I also grouped field goals into four-yard increments. In the off-season, I plan to incorporate stadium, temperature, and other weather effects, but for now, I’ve ignored the (often large) role such elements can play.

The table below shows how many field goals over expectation each kicker made through week 15. I also included a column for extra points, and the final column shows how many points over average each kicker provided, giving them 3 points for each field goal and one point for each extra point over average:

Rk	Name	Tm	FG M	FG A	FG %	EXP FG Made	FG Ov AVG	XP M	XP A	XP Ov Avg	Points Ov Avg
1	Justin Tucker	BAL	25	27	92.6%	20.7	4.3	37	37	0.2	13.1
2	Sebastian Janikowski	OAK	29	32	90.6%	24.7	4.3	22	22	0.1	12.9
3	Blair Walsh	MIN	29	32	90.6%	25.1	3.9	30	30	0.2	11.8
4	Shaun Suisham	PIT	26	27	96.3%	22.4	3.6	30	30	0.2	10.8
5	Phil Dawson	CLE	26	27	96.3%	22.5	3.5	28	28	0.2	10.6
6	Kai Forbath	WAS	15	15	100%	11.5	3.5	26	27	-0.8	9.6
7	Dan Bailey	DAL	27	29	93.1%	24	3	32	32	0.2	9.3
8	Jason Hanson	DET	28	32	87.5%	25.1	2.9	34	34	0.2	8.8
9	Connor Barth	TAM	23	28	82.1%	20.5	2.5	37	37	0.2	7.7
10	Greg Zuerlein	STL	21	29	72.4%	18.7	2.3	21	21	0.1	7.1
11	Jay Feely	ARI	21	24	87.5%	18.8	2.2	23	23	0.1	6.8
12	Josh Scobee	JAX	22	24	91.7%	19.6	2.4	15	16	-0.9	6.2
13	Matt Bryant	ATL	31	36	86.1%	29.3	1.7	38	38	0.2	5.4
14	Rian Lindell	BUF	20	21	95.2%	18.3	1.7	34	34	0.2	5.2
15	Nick Novak	SDG	15	17	88.2%	13.6	1.4	27	27	0.2	4.2
16	Alex Henery	PHI	25	28	89.3%	23.5	1.5	22	23	-0.9	3.7
17	Dan Carpenter	MIA	22	27	81.5%	21.2	0.8	26	26	0.1	2.6
18	Ryan Succop	KAN	25	29	86.2%	24.2	0.8	16	16	0.1	2.4
19	Nate Kaeding	SDG	7	7	100%	6.2	0.8	6	6	0	2.4
20	Josh Brown	CIN	6	6	100%	5.3	0.7	5	5	0	2.2
21	Robbie Gould	CHI	21	25	84%	20.5	0.5	33	33	0.2	1.8
22	Steven Hauschka	SEA	22	25	88%	20.9	1.1	38	40	-1.8	1.4
23	Mike Nugent	CIN	19	23	82.6%	18.6	0.4	35	35	0.2	1.3
24	Olindo Mare	CHI	2	2	100%	1.8	0.2	1	1	0	0.5
25	Graham Gano	CAR	5	5	100%	4.6	0.4	13	14	-0.9	0.3
26	Garrett Hartley	NOR	15	18	83.3%	15.1	-0.1	48	48	0.3	0.1
27	Lawrence Tynes	NYG	33	39	84.6%	33.1	-0.1	38	38	0.2	-0.2
28	Stephen Gostkowski	NWE	26	32	81.3%	26.2	-0.2	60	60	0.3	-0.3
29	Shayne Graham	HOU	26	32	81.3%	26.2	-0.2	44	44	0.2	-0.5
30	Adam Vinatieri	IND	24	31	77.4%	24.2	-0.2	31	31	0.2	-0.5
31	Matt Prater	DEN	23	29	79.3%	23.8	-0.8	46	46	0.3	-2.2
32	Nick Folk	NYJ	17	22	77.3%	17.8	-0.8	28	28	0.2	-2.3
33	Rob Bironas	TEN	24	30	80%	24.9	-0.9	29	29	0.2	-2.4
34	Justin Medlock	CAR	7	10	70%	8.3	-1.3	23	23	0.1	-3.9
35	Billy Cundiff	WAS	7	12	58.3%	9.3	-2.3	17	17	0.1	-6.7
36	David Akers	SFO	25	35	71.4%	28.2	-3.2	40	40	0.2	-9.5
37	Mason Crosby	GNB	17	29	58.6%	21.3	-4.3	39	39	0.2	-12.8

So Justin Tucker and Sebastian Janikowski have been the most valuable kickers this year — no surprise there, although Tucker is far from a household name. The worst two kickers won’t shock anyone who has watched much of the Packers or 49ers this year, as David Akers and especially Mason Crosby have been constant sources of frustration for their fans.

I’ll note that I am counting blocked field goals just like a regular miss. When I previewed the list to my brother, he was surprised to see Folk ranking 32nd, since he only missed five field goals. Well, two of them were blocked; if you removed those (and blamed them on the line instead of a low trajectory), he would be 17th (although in this one, I am only removing blocks for Folk). I’d also note that two of his other 3 misses hit the uprights, so I’m not surprised to see my brother (or any Jets fan) surprised to see Folk 32nd.

What if we look at expected field goals over average by distance?

Rk	Name	Tm	19to22	23to26	27to30	31to34	35to38	39to42	43to46	47to50	51to54	55to58	59to62	63to66	FG Ov Avg
1	Justin Tucker	BAL	0	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.4	0	1.6	0.1	1.4	0.6	0	0	4.3
2	Sebastian Janikowski	OAK	0.1	0.1	0.2	0.4	0.4	0.6	0.3	0.7	0.8	1.2	-0.3	-0.2	4.3
3	Blair Walsh	MIN	0	0.1	-0.8	0.1	0.7	0	-0.7	1.1	2.3	1.2	0	0	3.9
4	Shaun Suisham	PIT	0.1	0	0.2	0.4	0.3	0.8	0.8	1.1	-0.1	0	0	0	3.6
6	Kai Forbath	WAS	0	0.1	0	0.2	0	0	1.1	2.2	0	0	0	0	3.5
5	Phil Dawson	CLE	0	0.1	-0.8	0.4	0.4	1	0.3	0.7	1.4	0	0	0	3.5
7	Dan Bailey	DAL	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.5	0.4	0.8	0.5	0.7	-0.2	0	0	0	3
8	Jason Hanson	DET	0	0	0.1	0.5	0.1	0.6	1.4	-0.2	0.4	0	0	0	2.9
9	Connor Barth	TAM	0	0	0.1	0.1	-0.6	0.2	0.5	1.4	0.4	0.3	0	0	2.5
12	Josh Scobee	JAX	0.1	0.1	0	0.3	0.4	0.8	0.1	1.1	0	-0.4	0	0	2.4
10	Greg Zuerlein	STL	0	0	0.1	0.2	-1.7	0.4	0.8	1.4	0.8	-0.1	0.7	-0.3	2.3
11	Jay Feely	ARI	0	0	0.2	0.2	-0.3	-0.8	0.3	1.5	0.5	0	0.7	0	2.2
13	Matt Bryant	ATL	-0.9	0	0.2	0.3	-0.3	1	-0.4	-0.3	0.9	1.2	0	0	1.7
14	Rian Lindell	BUF	0	0	0	0.5	-0.5	1.2	0	0.4	0	0	0	0	1.7
16	Alex Henery	PHI	0.1	0.1	0	-0.7	0.5	1.2	0.1	0.7	0	-0.4	0	0	1.5
15	Nick Novak	SDG	0.1	0.1	0	0.3	0	0.2	0.5	0.7	-0.1	-0.4	0	0	1.4
22	Steven Hauschka	SEA	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.5	0.3	0.4	0.3	-0.3	-0.1	0	-0.3	0	1.1
17	Dan Carpenter	MIA	0	0	0.1	0.4	0.1	1.4	0.8	-1.9	-0.2	0	0	0	0.8
19	Nate Kaeding	SDG	0	0.1	0	0	0	0.4	0.3	0	0	0	0	0	0.8
18	Ryan Succop	KAN	0	0	-0.9	-0.3	0.3	-0.8	0.8	0.7	0.9	0	0	0	0.8
20	Josh Brown	CIN	0	0.1	0	0.2	0	0	0	0	0.5	0	0	0	0.7
21	Robbie Gould	CHI	0.1	0.1	0	-0.7	0.3	-0.2	1.1	-0.9	0.9	0	0	0	0.5
25	Graham Gano	CAR	0	0.1	0	0.2	0	0.2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.4
23	Mike Nugent	CIN	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.4	-0.2	-0.5	-0.2	0	0.6	0	0	0.4
24	Olindo Mare	CHI	0	0	0	0.2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.2
26	Garrett Hartley	NOR	0.1	0.1	0	0.2	-0.7	0.2	0	-0.3	0.4	0	0	0	-0.1
27	Lawrence Tynes	NYG	0	0.2	-0.7	0.3	-0.1	0.4	-0.2	1.1	-1.1	0	0	0	-0.1
28	Stephen Gostkowski	NWE	0	0.1	0.1	0.4	-0.5	-2.2	1.1	-0.2	0.9	0	0	0	-0.2
30	Adam Vinatieri	IND	0.1	0.1	0	0.1	-2.3	0.4	0.8	1.2	-0.2	-0.4	0	0	-0.2
29	Shayne Graham	HOU	0.1	0	0.2	0.4	0.4	1	-0.2	-1.6	-0.6	0	0	0	-0.2
31	Matt Prater	DEN	0.1	0.1	0.1	-0.2	0.1	0	-0.6	-1.3	1.4	-0.4	0	0	-0.8
32	Nick Folk	NYJ	0.1	-0.9	0	0.3	-0.6	0.2	-0.6	0	0.8	0	0	0	-0.8
33	Rob Bironas	TEN	0	0.1	0.1	0.3	0.8	-0.4	-1.5	-0.3	0.5	-0.4	0	0	-0.9
34	Justin Medlock	CAR	0	0	0	0.3	0	-0.8	-0.2	-0.6	0	0	0	0	-1.3
35	Billy Cundiff	WAS	0	0	0	-1.8	0.4	-0.4	0.3	0	0	-0.4	-0.3	0	-2.3
36	David Akers	SFO	0	0	0.3	-0.6	0.7	-1.8	-0.9	-0.3	-1.1	-0.4	0	0.8	-3.2
37	Mason Crosby	GNB	0	0.1	0.1	-0.7	-0.7	-0.2	-1.5	1.2	-1.7	-0.8	0	0	-4.3

Greg Zuerlein — or Greg the Leg, Young GZ, or Legatron, if you prefer — has cooled off since his hot start. He’s hit 3 of the successful field goals from 56+ yards this season, but all three came in September. Mason Crosby comes out as the worst kicker, and some have defended him because he’s mostly missed long field goals. While that’s somewhat true, this metric adjusts for distance, so he’s struggling even when you consider the difficulty of the kick.

Crosby is 1 for 8 when attempting field goals from 50+ yards, but the average kicker would have been successful on 4.2 field goals. He’s also missed from 32, 38, 42, 43, and 44 yards, and comes out as the worst kicker in the 43-to-46 range. David Akers tied an NFL record with a 63-yarder this year, but otherwise, he’s had a rough season. He’s missed six field goals from inside of 43 yards.

Most criticisms of 4th down calls spring when teams fail to go for it on 4th down and instead punt or kick a field goal. It is much rarer for stat geeks to cry out for a field goal attempt instead of a punt, and for good reason: field goals aren’t that valuable.

One reason for that: a field goal isn’t really worth 3 points; historical data tells us that a field goal is really worth 2.4 points. That’s because the other team gets the ball following a kickoff, on average, at the 26- or 27-yard line, and possession on 1st and 10 there is worth +0.6 points to that team. Therefore, a touchdown is really worth 6.4 points and a field goal worth 2.4 points, making a touchdown 2.67, and not 2.33, times as valuable as a field goal.

(It’s worth noting that, according to Jim Armstrong of Football Oustiders, since the rules changes last year on kickoffs, the average field position following a kickoff was 22.2 last year and 22.0 so far this season. Teams are at +0.4 in that situation, so a touchdown might now be worth 6.6 points and a field goal 2.6 points.)

Oakland Raiders coach Dennis Allen faced an interesting decision in the first quarter of the game against Atlanta last Sunday. On their second drive of the game, Oakland ran Darren McFadden for 8 yards on 3rd and 16 from the Atlanta 48. Facing 4th and 8 from the 40, Allen chose to punt.

In retrospect, it’s easy to criticize the decision. Shane Lechler’s punt went for a touchback, giving Oakland just 20 additional yards of field position, and after one play, the Falcons were already on the Raiders’ 39-yard line. And, of course, the Raiders lost by 3 in a game where Atlanta’s Matt Bryant nailed a 55-yarder to win the game.

But we can’t look at the outcome when analyzing Allen’s decision. What was the right call? We should probably start by acknowledging that, as a technically matter, the numbers say you should go for it. Considering the fact that the Raiders were an underdog, and that Oakland has (compared to the rest of their team) a pretty good passing game, and Atlanta has (compared to the rest of their team) a weak pass defense, going for it becomes an even more attractive option. But let’s put that to the side for now.

What are the odds of Janikowski hitting from 58 yards away? This season, kickers are 9 of 14 from 55+ yards out, although none have been attempted by Janikowski. Normally I would advise against using such a small sample size, but kickers this year seem to be deadlier than ever from long range. On the other hand, Janikowski is just 4/15 on kickers form 57+ yards over the last five and a half years. Even if you remove the 64, 65 and 66 yard attempts he missed, that’s still just a 33% rate. On the other hand, only two of those came in a dome — two misses in the span of two minutes in a game in New Orleans in 2008. My gut tells me that Janikowski is pretty close to even money in this situation in 2012, but I’m not sure how precise we can get.

But what we *can* do is figure out what the minimum percentage likelihood of success he needs to be at to make kicking the field goal the right call. According to Brian Burke, a missed field goal is worth -1.9 points to the Raiders, since the Falcons would get the ball at midfield, while a punt is worth +0.04 points to the punting team (presumably based on the other team getting the ball at their own 13-yard line).

There breakeven point where you should be indifferent between kicking and punting is therefore 45% (0.45 * 2.4 + 0.55 * -1.9 = +0.04). That seems to make it a pretty neutral decision. Given the fact that the Raiders were a heavy underdog, it’s pretty easy to argue that a 45% chance of 2.4 points (and a 55% chance of -1.9 points) is better than a 100% chance of being in a +0.04 situation. Underdogs need to take aggressive tactics, and this would have been an advisable decision. Of course, the more aggressive strategy with the highest reward would have been to go for it, although the presence of Janikowski does seem to argue in favor of kicking.

This wasn’t a particularly easy decision — or, given the context of the game, a particularly important one. Coaches make far worse decisions every Sunday. I do think in that situation, punting was the worst of the three options available for the Raiders.

[Note: I’m scheduled to appear on The Bobby Curran Show on ESPN 1420 at just after 12:30 today. If you’re interested, you can listen here.]

If you weren’t watching the Steelers-Raiders game, you probably didn’t hear about Mike Tomlin’s gutsy call late in the 4th quarter. That’s because it worked.

On 3rd-and-1 with 4:34 remaining in a tie game, Pittsburgh had the ball at their own 29-yard line. The Steelers ran Isaac Redman over the left guard for no gain, leaving them in a precarious position. According to Brian Burke, immediately following Redman’s run, Pittsburgh had just a 34% chance of winning the game. This makes sense, because on average, punts from the 29-yard line end up with the other team gaining possession at their own 33-yard line (net of 38 yards). This conforms with Burke’s win probability model, which states that a team with 1st and 10 at their own 33 with 3:45 remaining has a 66% chance of winning.

That’s just the average, though. What about the specific teams in this case? Pittsburgh has a rookie punter, so we probably shouldn’t assume anything better would happen if they punted. The biggest variable in the Raiders’ favor was the presence of Sebastian Janikowski, an uber kicker who appears capable of connecting from anywhere on the opponent’s side of the field. Since 2010, Janikowski is 12-of-18 from 50-yards or more, including a miss from 65; on average, those 18 kicks were 55-yard attempts. Essentially, if the Raiders got 30 yards after the punt, they would have had a very good chance of winning the game.

Of course, the Steelers defense is generally one of the best in the league, even without Troy Polamalu and James Harrison. The Raiders had scored 3 touchdowns and a field goal on their prior 4 drives, although we shouldn’t let a small sample size persuade us too much. Additionaly, the Steelers would go three-and-out after converting the 4th down, and the Raiders ended up driving down the field and kicking the game-winning field goal, anyway. Again, it’s tempting to consider this when determining the Raiders’ odds of winning following a punt, but that’s the sort of logic I would rally against if the circumstances were different.

My gut tells me the Raiders being at home, having a pretty decent offense, and a super kicker would outweight the fact that generally Pittsburgh has a very good defense. So at a minimum, I’d argue that a Steelers punt gives the Raiders a 66% chance of winning.

If Pittsburgh converted, they’d probably have the ball somewhere between their own 30 and 35-yard lines; ironically, right where the Raiders ended up having the ball. That makes the calculus pretty easy: Pittsburgh would have a 66% chance of winning if they converted. You might argue that their odds would be greater, because of the presence of Ben Roethlisberger and a strong passing attack and considering Oakland’s pass defense is suspect. I’m sure Steelers fans were very confident that they would win the game after converting on 4th-and-1, but taking the conservative approach would say Pittsburgh had “only” a 66-percent chance of winning if they converted.

Now what were the odds of converting? As always, you can trade a larger sample for a more precise one, and determining the appropriate cutoff is tricky. I looked at all plays in the second half or overtime of games where the team had 4th-and-1 on their own side of the field. I also limited this to games where the team was trailing by 3 or fewer, tied, or winning, to make sure that defenses were truly focused. That left 64 examples from ’00 to ’11.

Teams converted 48 of the 64 attempts, or exactly 75% of the time. On average the teams gained 2.8 yards with a median gain of 2 yards. 55 of the 64 times the team ran the ball, with 44 of those being successful (80%). Only 4 of the 9 passes were successful, although the quarterbacks in the misses (Ryan Leaf, Byron Leftwich, Jason Campbell, Gus Frerotte and Alex Smith) leave something to be desired.

If we increase the sample to any 4th-and-1 attempt outside of the opponent’s 30 (so the first 70 yards of the field for the offense), teams converted 67% of the time. Let’s split the difference and give Pittsburgh a 70% chance of converting.

Facing 4th-and-1, Pittsburgh has a 70% chance of getting a 66% chance of winning the game; that means they have a 46% chance of converting the 4th-and-1 and of then winning the game. This ignores the possibility of Pittsburgh missing the 4th-and-1 and still winning the game, which is clearly non-zero. And remember, if they punt, they have only a 34% chance of winning. Even if we force them to automatically lose if they don’t convert, they still are more likely to win the game by going for it. In fact, they only need to convert half of the time on 4th-and-1 to make it a break-even proposition, and that’s still ignoring the possibility of failing and still winning.

What are the odds of that? With just under 4 minutes left, maybe not as bad as you think. If Oakland has the ball at the Steelers’ 29-yard line, they are extremely unlikely to be able to run out the clock. Pittsburgh called its first timeout before the 4th-down decision, meaning the Steelers still would have had 2 timeouts left if they could not gain one yard. Odds are the Raiders play it pretty conservatively and kick a field goal, and the Steelers have 2 minutes to go to kick a field goal to force overtime (or score a touchdown). That’s hardly a hopeless position in which to be.

Based on past history, Oakland would have had an 82% chance — not 100% — of winning if they had the ball at the Pittsburgh 29-yard line with 3:45 left in the game. Oakland’s odds would be higher because of Janikowski, although that would be counterbalanced by Pittsburgh having one of the best quarterbacks in the league in the two minute drill.

Add it all up, and it becomes a pretty obvious call… unless you’re risk averse. If Pittsburgh punts, they have just a 34% chance of winning, maybe even lower because of Janikowski. If Pittsburgh is successful, they are the team with the 66% chance of winning; if they miss, they still have an 18% chance of winning, based on having a small chance of winning in regulation and a decent chance of still going to overtime based on the amount of time remaining. Note that if there was one minute left, Pittsburgh’s odds of winning drop to just 9% if they don’t convert, but with nearly 4 minutes to go, they would not be out of the game if they failed. Considering a 70% success rate on 4th and 1, and they would have a 52% chance (66% x 70% + 18% x 30%) of winning they game if they went for it. In other words, punting it on 4th and 1 would drop Pittsburgh’s odds of winning from 52% to 34%, making this a significant and obvious decision for Tomlin.

To make punting the better decision, you would really need to skew the odds. If you have the utmost faith in your defense, perhaps you think the Raiders having the ball at their own 33-yard line with 3:45 to go doesn’t make them the favorite to win. If you view that as a coin-flip game — a pretty difficult proposition to believe — Pittsburgh would *still* benefit by going for it, since their win probability was 52%.

It also would have been wise to go for it if they were winning by 1 or 2 points… or even 3 points. A larger lead and it gets a little cloudy, but this is not much different than Bill Belichick’s decision against the Colts a few years ago. At the end of the game, especially in today’s high-octane NFL, you don’t want to be in a close game without the ball.

And as you can see, converting the 4th down was one of the biggest swings in the game. Take a look at Brian Burke’s win probability graph:

I said it was an obvious call unless you’re risk averse. As we all know, NFL coaches think conservatives are very liberal. On the surface this wasn’t a unique situation, but when you try to find comparables, you have to limit yourself. Since 2000, I looked at all situations where a team faced 4th-and-1 on their own side of the field, in a game where they were leading by 8 or less (or were tied), and with between 2 and 6 minutes remaining. There were only 20 situations like that, and 18 times the teams punted. The two other times? One came in week 17 for the Steelers in the game where Jamal Lewis crossed the 2000-yard mark and Pittsburgh was trying to close the curtain on a 6-10 season. A year after “4th and 2“, Bill Belichick went at it again against the Chargers. With exactly 2 minutes to go and the ball at the Patriots 49, New England ran it on 4th and 1. They missed, but went to win after Kris Brown could not connect on a 50-yard field goal.