Written by
Weston Hodkiewicz
The art of field-goal kicking has drastically improved in the NFL over the past 11 years to the point the league average for a kicker has swelled to around 84 percent.
In 2001, the NFL had seven kickers fail to eclipse the 70-percent threshold after attempting at least 20 field goals during the season.
Since then, it's happened only on 12 other occasions.
Unfortunately for the Green Bay Packers, seventh-year kicker Mason Crosby joined that club last season when he went 21-of-33 on his attempts (63.6 percent), good for the fifth-lowest percentage since 2002 for any kicker who’s attempted at least 20 field goals in a season.
It’s the reason why the Packers opted to bring in first-year kicker Giorgio Tavecchio to compete with Crosby for the team’s kicking job.
“Through things like that there’s been successes and failures and careers. And mine, especially this last season you can look at that,” Crosby said. “For me, I build off of that. I’m learning from it. For me, I can look at the things that I didn’t like that I did during the season and I can eliminate those and really focus on the good things, the positives.”
The odds of a kicker surviving a sub-70 season run a little better than 50 percent. Of the 11 individuals besides Crosby who have missed the mark, five were not retained the following season.
Of the six who were brought back, only two (Jacksonville’s Josh Scobee and Oakland’s Sebastian Janikowski) survived more than one year with the team.
How will Crosby fare? We’ll look into that in our profile of the 28-year-old kicker in Saturday’s Green Bay Press-Gazette. Until then, take a glance at the worst 12 seasons the NFL has seen for kickers since 2002.
Worst kicking seasons since 2002 (min. 20 tries)1. Todd Peterson, 2002 Pittsburgh (12-of-21, 57.1 percent)
2. Seth Marler, 2003 Jacksonville (20-of-33, 60.6 percent)
3. Martin Gramatica, 2003 Tampa Bay (16-of-26, 61.5 percent)
4. Paul Edinger, 2004 Chicago (15-of-24, 62.5 percent)
5. Mason Crosby, 2012 Green Bay (21-of-33, 63.6 percent)
6t. Nick Folk, 2009 Dallas (18-of-28, 64.3 percent)
6t. Josh Scobee, 2009 Jacksonville (18-of-28, 64.3 percent)
8. Kris Brown, 2009 Houston (21-of-32, 65.6 percent)
9. Sebastian Janikowski, 2005 Oakland (20-of-30, 66.6 percent)
10. Graham Gano, 2010 Washington (24-of-35, 68.6 percent)
11. David Akers, 2012 San Francisco (29-of-42, 69.0 percent)
12. Steve Christie, 2002 San Diego (18-of-26, 69.2 percent)
— whodkiew@pressgazettemedia.com and follow him on Twitter @WesHod.