A History - NFL Kickers

Author

Tyler Otto

Kicking in the NFL

The Super Bowl is here and some of the biggest games come down to the wire where the game’s outcome sits with one player - the kicker.

Field goals have always been a big deal in football. You know the drill — short kicks are usually automatic, long kicks are risky, and every yard counts.

But over the last 15 years, kickers have gotten better, and the line between “makeable” and “no way” has shifted outward. This analysis digs into how field goal accuracy has evolved, how far kickers are actually kicking, and what that looks like across seasons.

Accuracy Overview

This plot shows the overall probability of making a field goal by distance across all seasons. As expected, shorter kicks are highly reliable, while longer kicks are more challenging. Over time, we can start to see improvements even at longer distances.

Heatmap of Accuracy by Season

Next, I wanted to see accuracy across seasons.

This shows some interesting trends, but perhaps the buckets are too small to actually get significant signal in each cell. Perhaps we should bin the data next?

Heatmap of Accuracy by Season

To better understand seasonal trends, we group kicks into 5-yard distance bins. The heatmap below shows the probability of a successful kick for each bin across seasons.

Notice that the long kicks, 60+ yards, are slowly getting more reliable in recent seasons. Kickers are pushing the envelope and the data reflects that.

Long Field Goals Are No Longer Long Shots

This line chart shows make probability for different distance ranges over time. What stands out is that the “60+” yard range, once considered almost impossible, is becoming makeable in a growing number of seasons.

This suggests that training, field technology, maybe the ball itself, and kicker skill have all improved.

The Shape of a Makeable Field Goal Has Changed

This ridgeline chart shows how the shape of a makeable field goal has changed. Each ridge is a season, and the height is the make probability at each distance.

We can see the peak probability region shifting outward. Kickers are consistently making longer kicks than before.