*An Advanced Statistical Look at Season 27 Kickers

[qWest]

Hey everyone, qWest coming at you with the next article from the Sim Football Writers Guild. Don’t forget to check out the Ultimate S27 Statistics Sheet from Mithrandir HERE.

Please also check out the first three articles in this series: slate's dive into WRs HERE Mithrandir's article on CBs HERE and ztarwarz's analysis on RBs HERE.

But now it's time for the most important and sexy article of the SFWG: the Kicker article.
In my experience in the awards committee and from seeing awards results over the last several seasons, I find that the biggest factor for kicker recognition is always accuracy. If a kicker can hit gold with a 100% season, they’re usually locked in to bring home the KotY hardware in the off-season. Accuracy and consistency are certainly a huge part of how we can and should be grading kickers but, with the help of some statistical analysis from Mithrandir and some extra research, I believe I can help provide an analysis of a kicker’s value to pair with analysis of their accuracy.

First though, we definitely should be looking at accuracy. Some of these statistics are pretty quickly seen in the index, but I think it’s important to collect them all to see here next to some of the ancillary statistics that we've calculated.

KICKER ACCURACY

EXTRA POINT %

T-1. Sam Sidekick - 100.0%
T-1. Danny King - 100.0%
T-1. Matthew McDairmid - 100.0%
T-1. Dougie Smalls - 100.0%
T-1. Blago Kokot - 100.0%
T-1. Silver Banana - 100.0%
T-1. Leo Bloomfield - 100.0%
T-1. Datsum PhastBawls - 100.0%
9. Jacob Small - 98.2%
10. J.J 'Jay' Jay-Jaymison - 97.9%
11. Venus Powers - 97.8%
12. Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname - 97.4%
13. Jake Fencik - 97.1%
14. Pseudo QB - 95.3%

Missing an extra point probably shouldn’t be considered as harshly as missing a field goal, as it takes three of these to make up for the points gained by making a field goal. The volume here can definitely make a difference if you do take it into account. Though Jacob Small may have an XP% that is 1.8% lower than Datsum PhastBawls or Leo Bloominfields 100% accuracy, he made 5 more Extra Points than both of those players combined. Looking at the volume here, it definitely shows how scoring has increased across the league. Four different kickers (Sidekick, Kokot, Banana, and Small) attempted and made 50 or more extra points this season.

FIELD GOAL %

1. Jake Fencik     - 97.1%
2. Sam Sidekick - 96.6%
3. Venus Powers - 94.1%
4. Danny King - 93.8%
5. J.J 'Jay' Jay-Jaymison - 93.5%
6. Jacob Small - 92.3%
7. Matthew McDairmid - 89.5%
8. Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname - 86.7%
9. Dougie Smalls - 86.4%
10. Blago Kokot - 86.2%
11. Silver Banana - 81.6%
12. Pseudo QB - 81.1%
13. Leo Bloomfield - 80.0%
14. Datsum PhastBawls - 54.5%

Average: 87.10%

Alright, that’s what we’re really looking for. Fun fact before we look deeper, despite being first in FG% and second to last in XP%, Philadelphia’s Jake Fencik has exactly a 97.1% accuracy in both categories.

Additionally, I wanted to provide some added context to these accuracy numbers with a look at distance. Missing a needed chip shot is a lot more damning for a kicker than falling short on a 60 yard prayer. For this I quickly calculated Short (0-39), Mid(40-49) , and Long (50+) range accuracy. That Short range is pretty large, but I think it’s a useful range, as it’s the yardage in which I expect every starting ISFL kicker to nail every time. Mid range kicks are a bit more of a mixed bag, and it always feels pretty lucky to see a kick made above 50 yards.

SHORT FIELD GOAL %

T-1. Sam Sidekick - 100.00%
T-1. Danny King - 100.00%
T-1. Matthew McDairmid - 100.00%
T-1. J.J 'Jay' Jay-Jaymison - 100.00%
T-1. Venus Powers - 100.00%
T-1. Jake Fencik - 100.00%
T-1. Pseudo QB - 100.00%
8. Leo Bloomfield - 95.00%
9. Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname - 93.33%
10. Jacob Small - 92.86%
11. Silver Banana - 92.59%
12. Dougie Smalls - 92.31%
13. Blago Kokot - 85.71%
14. Datsum PhastBawls - 66.67%

Average: 94.17%

MID RANGE FIELD GOAL %

T-1. Danny King - 100.00%
T-1. Jacob Small - 100.00%
3. Jake Fencik - 93.33%
T-4. Sam Sidekick - 91.67%
T-4. Blago Kokot - 91.67%
6. J.J 'Jay' Jay-Jaymison - 90.91%
7. Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname - 84.62%
8. Silver Banana - 83.33%
T-9. Leo Bloomfield -80.00%
T-9. Dougie Smalls - 80.00%
11. Venus Powers - 77.78%
12. Matthew McDairmid - 70.00%
13. Pseudo QB - 53.85%
14. Datsum PhastBawls - 33.33%

Average: 80.69%

LONG RANGE FIELD GOAL %

T-1. Jake Fencik - 100.00%
T-1. Sam Sidekick - 100.00%
T-1. Venus Powers - 100.00%
4. Matthew McDairmid - 83.33%
T-5. Jacob Small - 75.00%
T-5. Dougie Smalls - 75.00%
T-5. Pseudo QB - 75.00%
T-5. Datsum PhastBawls - 75.00%
9. Blago Kokot - 66.67%
10. Danny King - 60.00%
11. Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname - 50.00%
T-12. Silver Banana - 20.00%
T-12. Leo Bloomfield - 20.00%
14. J.J 'Jay' Jay-Jaymison - 0.00%

Average: 66.04%

Well, if there’s anything we can say for Datsum PhastBawls, it’s that he isn’t last in Long Range Field Goal %! He is, however, almost impressively far behind in every other accuracy category. While Danny King’s 60% accuracy at long range doesn’t worry me too much since he attempted 5 of these field goals and still made 3, it makes it even more impressive that Jake Fencik made all 5 of his long range attempts. Two other players attempted 5 long range field goals (Bloomfield and Banana), both of whom made only 1. The player with the most long range attempts is Big Leg Matty McDairmid, tying Fencik at the league high 5 long range field goals made.

As I said earlier, the Mid Range is a mixed bag. Six kickers held a Mid Range % of 90% or more and eight kickers performed above the average. Pseudo QB and Datsum PhastBawls are doing a lot to bring down the average however. Eliminating those two players from the calculation raises the average to 86.99%, a number that only half of the remaining kickers exceed. The 40-49 yard range is the 10 yard range where kickers attempted more field goals than any other range on average (10.36 average Mid Range attempts and 8.36 average makes). Performing well in this category is a big make or break in my mind. I generally expect kickers to make short range kicks and miss long range kicks, so I find that it’s this mid range that separates the good from the bad. For example, Honolulu’s Venus Powers, despite being perfect in short and long range, drops significantly in my rankings thanks to two key misses in her few mid range attempts. Those two kicks drop her to 11th in mid range and drops her overall Field Goal % to 94.1%, 3rd in the league. On the other hand, despite an overall Field Goal % 0.3% lower than Venus Powers, Danny King comes out looking a lot better to me after he went 27 for 27 on his short and mid range kicks, as I can much more easily excuse his two misses being in the 50+ yard range.

That said, using an advanced proprietary equation (which I will be calling the qWest qUotient, or qq), I have calculated the top five most accurate kickers from Season 27:

TOP 5 MOST ACCURATE KICKERS

1. Jake Fencik - 5.87 qq
2. Sam Sidekick - 5.83 qq
3. Danny King - 5.60 qq
4. Venus Powers - 5.56 qq
5. Jacob Small - 5.54 qq

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Alright, time to flip to the other side of the coin with an analysis of:

KICKER VALUE

Being an accurate kicker is important, but being an accurate kicker more often is even more valuable. Those players match accuracy with performance to provide their teams with greater value. This section is going to involve three key added metrics for measuring kicker performance, brought to you by the Sim Football Writers Guild. These three metrics that we’ll be looking at are Points, Points Above Replacement (PAR), and Clutch Field Goals. Points are simple, how many points did the kicker put on the board between Field Goals and Extra Points. Here are the rankings:

POINTS

1. Silver Banana - 145
2. Venus Powers - 140
3. Matthew McDairmid - 137
4. Sam Sidekick - 134
5. J.J 'Jay' Jay-Jaymison - 133
6. Jake Fencik     - 132
7. Pseudo QB - 131
8. Blago Kokot - 128
9. Jacob Small - 127
10. Danny King - 123
11. Leo Bloomfield - 122
12. Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname - 116
13. Dougie Smalls - 91
14. Datsum PhastBawls - 60

Average: 122.79

Points above replacement attempts to measure how much value a player adds to their team by comparing their points with the amount of points that team should expect from a league average kicker. Getting to this number requires looking at the average number of kicks made over the average number of kicks attempted from every kicker, multiplying all of the field goals by 3 and the extra points by 1. In the short range, we expect kicks to result in 2.902 points when our mathematical average kicker lines up to make the attempt. The mid range expected points number is 2.421, long range is 1.981, and XPs are 0.988 expected points. You can look more at the math here in Mithrandir’s statistics sheet. Here are the PAR rankings:

POINTS ABOVE REPLACEMENT

1. Jake Fencik     - 12.26
2. Sam Sidekick - 8.72
3. Danny King - 6.33
4. Venus Powers - 4.54
5. Jacob Small - 3.99
6. J.J 'Jay' Jay-Jaymison - 3.68
7. Matthew McDairmid - 2.94
8. Blago Kokot - 0.71
9. Dougie Smalls - 0.10
10. Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname - -0.96
11. Leo Bloomfield - -7.07
12. Pseudo QB - -7.98
13. Silver Banana - -8.20
14. Datsum PhastBawls - -19.06

Oh boy Datsum, not again. Welcome back to the bottom. Anyways, what are you looking at here? The PAR measurement lets us know how many more points a given kicker gave their team compared to our magical mathematical average kicker, if that kicker was given all of the same opportunities. While PhastBawls took a whopping 19.06 points off of the scoreboard for Baltimore over the season, Jake Fencik gave Philadelphia an amazing 12.26 additional points.

One last measurement here is clutch field goals. For this season, I calculated this based on the same metric that Football Outsiders uses. They define a clutch Field Goal as: “any field goal in the final two minutes or overtime that either ties the game or gives a team the lead.” Using this definition, there were 13 clutch field goal attempts this season, 11 of which were made. 5 kickers this season attempted zero clutch field goals. Here are the rankings.

CLUTCH FIELD GOALS

T-1. Blago Kokot - 2 Attempts, 2 Makes, 100%
T-1. Silver Banana - 2 Attempts, 2 Makes, 100%
T-1. Jake Fencik - 2 Attempts, 2 Makes, 100%
T-4. Alex Dasistwirklichseinnachname - 1 Attempt, 1 Make, 100%
T-4. J.J 'Jay' Jay-Jaymison - 1 Attempt, 1 Make, 100%
T-4. Danny King - 1 Attempt, 1 Make, 100%
T-4. Venus Powers - 1 Attempt, 1 Make, 100%
8. Matthew McDairmid -  2 Attempts, 1 Make, 50%
9. Datsum PhastBawls -  1 Attempt, 0 Makes, 0%
NR. Leo Bloomfield - 0 Attempts
NR. Sam Sidekick - 0 Attempts
NR. Jacob Small - 0 Attempts
NR. Dougie Smalls - 0 Attempts
NR. Pseudo QB - 0 Attempts

Honestly, if I were to calculate clutch field goals again I’d probably do it differently, doing away with the last two minutes requirement and instead looking at any field goal attempts made to tie or take the lead within the last two minutes or made during a teams final consequential offensive drive (so not including a drive that only involves running out the clock). However, this metric still did include almost all of the clutch field goals made this season. In breaking down those top 3 clutch kickers tied up at the top, I believe a clear hierarchy does form. Silver Bananas two clutch field goals to me rank last of the three, as one resulted in a tie game result after their overtime kick, and the other won the game at the end of regulation. Jake Fencik ranks as my second most clutch kicker. His two clutch FGs came in the same game, with the first tying up the game at the very end of the game and the other winning Philadelphia the same game in overtime. Blago Kokot takes the throne for me as the most clutch kicker this season. They scored two game winning field goals at the end of regulation, including my single favorite, number 1 most clutch field goal of the season in week 14 versus the San Jose Sabercats. After the offense tied up the game at 31-31, Yellowknife let the Sabercats just into their territory for Matthew McDairmid to attempt a 48-yard game winner. He missed this clutch field goal attempt and, with 24 seconds left, Monty Jack completed a pass to Dre Matthews for 15 yards and Matthews made it out of bounds with exactly 1 second left on the clock. Blago Kokot walked out with balls of steel and nailed a 63 yard field goal from that spot to give Yellowknife the win.

Now that I’ve waxed poetic about Kokot for long enough, we can look at combining all of our value metrics together in order to try and understand which kickers provided their teams with the most value. Again for this category I’ve implemented a complex proprietary computation that combines and evaluates the measurements that I’ve already shown here. Using a combined and weighted evaluation of each kickers PAR, clutch kicking contributions, and their points (compared to the average for this measurement) and in doing I’ve calculated each kickers Production Power (PP), my best evaluation of these kickers value. Here is our top 5:

TOP 5 MOST VALUABLE KICKERS

1. Jake Fencik - 11.35 PP
2. Sam Sidekick - 6.44 PP
3. Danny King - 5.56 PP
4. Venus Powers - 5.32 PP
5. J.J 'Jay' Jay-Jaymison - 4.35 PP

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Well then with that I think I’ll leave it to you and to the voters to decide how to evaluate the kickers on the season. A number of kickers performed quite well in both categories, I think it’s quite clear in both accuracy and value that Jake Fencik has had an absolutely killer year, and some kickers were quite accurate without providing their team much value and vice versa.

Thank you for reading this and the other articles from the SFWG so far, I hope you’re looking forward to more work coming down the pipeline and to seeing the first All-Pro team coming to you soon!

[Pat]

One bit to add to why Fencik deserves KOTY:

He MADE more field goals of 40 or more yards than anyone else ATTEMPTED all season, while only missing one of them!

[124715]

Dang I had no clue Fencik had such a great season

[infinitempg]

INJECT MORE SPECIALIST MEDIA INTO MY VEINS

[Cody]

Fencik carried Philadelphia! @xenosthelegend for KotY

[Jimi64]

Fencik for KOTY no question

[Matty7478]

This just makes me feel bad about actually trying to earn