Pro Football Reference Blog

Last week I posted coaching records in games decided by three points or less. Commenter "ABW" sparked some interesting discussion in the comments by speculating that teams' records in close games had a lot to do with the performance of the kicker. So let's take a quick look at the data on that.

First, a regression. I looked at all team seasons from 1980--2005 and I used two input variables: (1) the team's field goal percentage (minus the league average field goal percentage) for that season, and (2) the team's record in non-close games for that season, with a "close" game again being imperfectly defined as one which was ultimately decided by three points or less. The output variable is the team's record in close games.

The results:

• The team's record in non-close games was insignificant, and close enough to zero that it wouldn't have been practically significant even if it had been statistically significant.
• The team's annual field goal percentage was statistically significant (p=.02), but was fairly small: .27. So if a team could increase their field goal percentage by .10 --- say from .75 to .85, which is a pretty substantial increase --- they could expect to increase their close game winning percentage by .027. That's about one win for every 37 close games played. To summarize: there seems to be a real relationship between kicking accuracy and close game winning percentage, but the magnitude of that effect is very small.
• The regression had an R^2 of .012. No that's not a typo, it's just a really low R^2. Loosely stated, this means any attempt (well, any simple linear attempt) to predict close game winning percentage from kicking accuracy and general team quality (i.e. non-close game winning percentage) is not going to be noticeably better than twirling a coin.

In case you're curious, here are the league field goal percentages.

Year   LgFG%

============

1980    64.2

1981    66.1

1982    68.6

1983    71.6

1984    71.7

1985    72.2

1986    68.6

1987    70.4

1988    71.7

1989    72.5

1990    74.4

1991    73.5

1992    72.6

1993    76.6

1994    78.9

1995    77.4

1996    80.0

1997    78.1

1998    79.6

1999    77.6

2000    79.8

2001    76.4

2002    77.7

2003    79.3

2004    80.9

2005    81.1

Finally, here are the close game records of some kickers. I only have kicking data from 1980--2005, so this will contain partial careers for anyone whose career started before 1980 or ended after 2005. Also, since I don't have game-by-game records for kickers, I've given full credit (or blame) for all the close games in each team season to the kicker who attempted the most field goals for that team in that season. That's going to miscount some games, but it's the best I can do. The list includes all kickers who, according to the estimates detailed above, were involved in 20 or more close games.

If you read the top part of the post, you can probably guess that I don't think this list is worth much, except possibly as a source of fun trivia.

                   ClsGms   CGWin%

==================================

Mark Moseley          21    0.714

Paul Edinger          21    0.714

Adam Vinatieri        38    0.684

Raul Allegre          21    0.667

Dean Biasucci         28    0.643

Kevin Butler          44    0.636

Rich Karlis           33    0.621

Norm Johnson          56    0.607

Olindo Mare           38    0.605

Pete Stoyanovich      45    0.600

Mike Vanderjagt       27    0.593

Jay Feely             23    0.587

Matt Bahr             61    0.582

Steve Christie        55    0.582

Michael Husted        26    0.577

Jeff Jaeger           47    0.574

Gary Anderson         58    0.569

Joe Nedney            37    0.568

Ryan Longwell         32    0.562

Chris Bahr            40    0.550

Fuad Reveiz           33    0.545

Jim Breech            35    0.543

Rafael Septien        24    0.542

Pat Leahy             41    0.537

Scott Norwood         28    0.536

Chris Boniol          29    0.534

Mike Lansford         23    0.522

Mike Cofer            27    0.519

Morten Andersen       97    0.515

Chris Jacke           35    0.514

Chip Lohmiller        34    0.500

David Akers           24    0.500

John Carney           65    0.492

John Hall             43    0.488

Mike Hollis           27    0.481

Doug Brien            27    0.481

Jason Hanson          48    0.479

Greg Davis            36    0.472

Cary Blanchard        34    0.471

David Treadwell       30    0.467

Todd Peterson         43    0.453

Roger Ruzek           20    0.450

Paul McFadden         27    0.444

Tony Zendejas         27    0.444

Martin Gramatica      25    0.440

Al Del Greco          67    0.433

Jan Stenerud          22    0.432

Jason Elam            49    0.429

Ray Wersching         27    0.426

Sebastian Janikowski  26    0.423

Jeff Wilkins          34    0.412

Kris Brown            27    0.407

Mick Luckhurst        21    0.405

John Kasay            55    0.400

Phil Dawson           25    0.400

Tony Franklin         28    0.393

Doug Pelfrey          26    0.385

Nick Lowery           65    0.385

Eddie Murray          64    0.383

Rolf Benirschke       21    0.381

Matt Stover           64    0.352

Donald Igwebuike      24    0.333