The Importance Of Football Kicks

I Hate kickers, and so Should You
Kickers should not be in the NFL.

Well not exactly, but they should not have the impact on the game that they do now. In no way am I trying to take away from their talent.

Take a look at the team next time football is on TV. notice anyone that doesn’t fit in? Most likely the kicker is sitting by himself, or hidden behind an offensive tackle who, at 6’5 300 pounds, is average sized for his position. The kicker is not even required to wear leg pads.

Football is a crazy mix between speed and just pure brute strength. For 60 minutes the best athletes in the world grind it out in the trenches, beating eachother up in hoped of scoring more than their opponent. Blood sweat and tears are poured out on the

Most kickers didn 't even start as football players. Current NFL kickers like Cairo Santos grew up playing soccer and took an unlikely path to the NFL.

Kickers converted on 1,222 of 1,230 extra points in 2013, roughly a 99.5% success rate. Due to the easy nature of the extra point, the NFL decided to make it harder for kickers. In 2015 the NFL moved the extra point back 15 yards.

Week 11 in itself had more missed extra points than all of 2015 combined. Week 11 alone saw 12 missed extra points by kickers all across the league.

Already the effects of the rule change have significantly altered the course of multiple games. Before the rule change the extra point was just that, an extra point. But the point after touchdown (PAT) has turned into anything but guaranteed. With misses becoming more prominent many teams like the steelers are opting to take the two point conversion attempt.

Based on the 2016 league wide 94% conversion rate on extra point kicks, Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has opted to take the chance and go for 2 more often. A lower success rate on the two point conversion is typically why coaches shy away from Tomlin’s tactic. Some simple math shows, however, that going for two every time will yield more expected