Kickers can be the black sheep of the football team, but make no mistake about it: Kickers are important. This was increasingly apparent this year as multiple kickers had historically bad games, and even the most reliable specialists had some terrible performances.
While most NFL drafts will only see one kicker drafted, often in the 7th round, scouting kickers is still incredibly important for every NFL team. Unfortunately, they can be extremely difficult to scout.
It seems like scouting the position should be easy. After all, kickers have less variables that affect their performance that nearly any other position. So long as your kick isn’t blocked, the competition has no effect on the success of the kicker at the college level. The field doesn’t get longer from college to pros, so if you can kick well in college, it’s the same thing in the NFL (except for the longer extra point). The only major confounding variables are kicking conditions and offensive scheme, but these usually make kicking easier for NFL kickers due to better grass and more opportunities to kick. Because kicking is relatively the same regardless of the competition, it seems like it should be as easy to scout kickers as it is to scout how good of a free throw shooter someone is.
Obviously, that’s not actually the case. Great college kickers will often fizzle out quickly in the NFL, and relatively-poor college kickers might find a stride when given a chance. Even once they make it to the NFL, one year can be drastically different from the rest. Blair Walsh set NFL records as a rookie, and just a few years later missed a sub-30 yard field goal in the playoffs and never recovered. You also have players like Mason Crosby who have a terrible year (2012), but are then able to recover.
More so than any other position in football, kickers have to have a strong mental game. This mental game for kickers is different than football IQ and quick decision making of quarterbacks. Kickers don’t need to have the instincts or process complex defenses in a fraction of a second, they just need to be able to stop thinking.
NFL Kicker Psychology
NFL Kicker Psychology is a scientific study of the mental game of kickers. Kicking is a lot different that other aspects of the game which are a lot faster and reactive. Unlike other positions, you actually have time to think before doing your job. In this respect, kicker psychology is more like golf, where players perform mostly on their own schedule and spend time trying to perfect striking form.
There are a lot of technicalities to golf psychology that would take a textbook to fully explain. If you aren’t focusing on the right things and are too left-brained with your thoughts, you’ll be tight and your mechanics will be totally out of whack. If you don’t think enough, however, you might fail to calculate for the wind or other external factors.
Even hitting the ball 1/8″ further left than anticipated can make you miss, so form has to be well refined to hit consistently. After a miss, kickers will also have a habit of over-correcting. If they missed because they swung their shoulders open one-tenth of a second early, they’ll consciously try to swing their shoulders later, which will result in them opening up way too late. This results in multiple misses, and a kicker who is totally lost. In simple terms, one miss can cause a kicker to change their mechanics away from what made them successful.
The end story is that good kickers have a good mental game, but it’s hard to see when scouting. You can see how kickers do in clutch situations, but you never know what external factors are going on at the time. It’s also hard to find how a kicker can overcome adversity.
Kicker Examples
There are a few examples of kickers who were great in college, but were unable to translate that to the next level due to their mental game. The opposite is also true, as some kickers exceeded even their own expectations once they made it to the league.
Roberto Aguayo
Aguayo was supposed to be the next big thing as an NFL kicker after his success at Florida State. In his 3 years there, he was a 3-time First-Team All-American, won the Lou Groza Award, and won a national championship. He was 69-of-78 (88.5%) in his career, including a perfect 46-for-46 from under 40 yards. His career long was 53 yards, but he had enough leg to hit from over 53 consistently.
Aguayo was drafted 59th overall in 2016, and Tampa Bay had traded their 3rd and 4th round picks in order to make the selection. In 2016, he went 22-for-31 (71.0%), which was the worst percentage of any kicker in the league. He was also very poor from 40+, only hitting 4-of-11, with a long of 43 yards. In the 2017 preseason he missed his first field goal, and was subsequently cut. Throughout the 2017-2018 season, his second in the league, he was signed and cut by three teams.
Aguayo had incredible accuracy but changed something after making it to the league, and his confidence suffered. Even worse, NFL GM’s lost confidence in him due to his public difficulties.
Daniel Carlson
Carlson was considered the top kicker in the 2018 draft, and had incredible success throughout his career at Auburn. The 6’4″ 220 pound kicker was a 3-time SEC 1st team selection, and kicked well in many big games. Carlson had an extremely strong leg and hit 50+ yard field goals routinely throughout his career. His career percentage was just a hair over 80% which wasn’t the best in the nation, but was impressive given the difficulty of his kicks. It also helped that he hit an astounding 92 field goals throughout his career, and was trusted by his coaches from anywhere on the field. He was also great as a kickoff specialist, and teams liked his accolades and ability to kick in a tough conference.
Like Aguayo, Carlson entered the draft as the clear number 1 kicker. He was drafted by the Vikings in the 5th round, and quickly beat out the incumbent kicker, Kai Forbath. Soon after the Vikings cut Forbath following week 2 of the preseason, Carlson’s struggles began. He missed 2 kicks in the remaining weeks of the preseason, and went 1-for-4 to start his career, including 3 misses against the Packers which would have won them the game. The Vikings had Super Bowl aspirations, and they decided to cut ties with him.
The meltdown has horrendous, and Vikings fans were happy to see him go. Carlson rebounded well after signing with the Raiders, however, where he could regain his confidence being on a team that didn’t expect to win. In 10 games with them, he went 16-for-17.
It’s pretty early to say Carlson will be a bust, but he certainly was from the Vikings’ standpoint. Despite experiencing pressure situations in college and succeeding in them, he had never had to experience much adversity. He couldn’t get past his early struggles, and ended up over-adjusting and getting in his own head. The change of scenery helped, but the Vikings certainly wish they could’ve predicted his initial meltdown.
Kickers Who Exceeded Expectations
There were also plenty of kickers who didn’t do great in college but have done great in the NFL due to their mental fortitude. Wil Lutz is a good example of this.
Wil Lutz
Wil Lutz is a Georgia State product who wasn’t particularly successful in college. He was just 12-for-19 (63.2%) his senior season, and was just 19-for-27 entering that season, and most of his makes were short field goals. Lutz showed some ability in clutch situations, and did have the respect of his coaching staff. He was also a skilled punter, although this trait doesn’t normally influence NFL scouting for kickers.
In the 2016 NFL Draft, Lutz was my rated as my 7th best kicking prospect. I had him ranked higher than most, although that was only because I heard rumors that scouts were impressed with a workout of his. Since signing as an undrafted free agent with the Saints, Lutz has been a reliable kicker. In the 2018-2019 season, he had the 5th best overall field goal percentage, having hit 28-of-30. He was also 13-of-15 from over 40 yards, hit clutch field goals, and only missed one extra point.
Lutz is just one example of kickers who appear out of seemingly no where and maintain steady careers once their accuracy and form is coached properly.
Kicker Psychology Affecting the Draft
Coaches and scouts seem to be at a loss regarding how to scout kickers. After all, it’s impossible to simulate the pressures of a game and mental effects of a 17+ week season.
Kicker psychology is becoming even more important due to the somewhat-recent change to the extra points. These kicks used to be a good way of getting a kicker out of a funk. The 19 yard chip shot was almost like a layup in basketball for a struggling shooter, and seeing the ball you through the uprights on an easy attempt took some pressure off.
Rookie kickers have never experienced difficult extra points before, and it can take them some time to adjust. If nothing else, it’s a routine change that forces kickers to reevaluate their mindset and routine, which can always be a dangerous thing.
Until kickers are able to improve their mental game, expect to see more teams go with 2 kickers during the preseason. This means that more rookie kickers will get opportunities, and lower-ranked prospects will get more attention as scouts try to find the diamond in the rough.
The 2019 group of kickers isn’t great, but a lot of teams will be looking for kicker competition this coming year. Expect to see a large number signed as free agents. The increased demand for undrafted free agent kickers could also lead teams to draft more kickers. Matthew Gay of Utah is currently considered the best in the draft, and will likely see a higher stock this year than kickers of his caliber in years past.
