Anders Carlson

[lambeaulambo]

Actually, Jordan Love ended the season with his game-ending INT if you want to cast stones. There were many mistakes in the game against San Francisco that contributed to the loss, Carlson being one of them.

Besides QB, I think that kicker is the hardest position for a rookie to play because of the intense scrutiny and mental side of kicking. Generally I think that the fan base needs to have patience with this kid. Not every player comes out like CJ Stroud to light up the NFL. Carlson has shown that he has the physical skills to be an elite kicker. Mike Zimmer was short-sighted and cut Carlson's brother, who is now probably the best kicker in the league. With the tremendous upside and kicking pedigree, he deserves a longer leash.

Yeah - he might cost us an important game again but I think that it's worth the gamble. Currently there are no options out there that are significantly better. In the current scenario, then I believe that we should stick with the kid with more potential.

That is fair. Im just stating the obvious. No - Justin Tucker is the goat. If Anders misses and its an L in the playoffs this year he is adios.

 

[lambeaulambo]

Maybe one of Anders legs is stronger than the other like Watson. LOL...no wonder he is missing all over the place.

 

[Pkrjones]

Heading into today's practice I believe I read that Alex Hale was kicking well. Today he went 5 for 9, hitting his first 4, then missing 4 in a row from 47 yds+. May need to keep track of all kickers' performances like diving judges: throw out best & worst days, count up the others?

 

[Heyjoe4]

From the article
"Ryland, meanwhile, is a University of Maryland product, taken in the 4th round of the 2023 draft. Ryland was the Pats starter, but he wasn’t very good, making just 64% of his field goals."
I don't feel so bad about AC after seeing this. We 'wasted' our 4th round pick on Colby Wooden.

Yikes, 64% of FGs? That's not even good enough for high school, ok maybe not good enough for D2 NCAA. And a 4th round pick is unusually high for a K. I didn't know Wooden was drafted in the 4th. Talk about value.....

 

[Heyjoe4]

Maybe one of Anders legs is stronger than the other like Watson. LOL...no wonder he is missing all over the place.

Hands down the best theory I've heard about AC. Well done lambeu, well done.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Almost all the great Kickers are great from 33 yards. Very few exceptions. Gotta hit from XPA range or the rest of the story only gets worse

Agree. Carlson missed way too many XPAs last year. I don't remember any of them costing the Packers a game, but that's playing with fire, and unacceptable in the NFL.

On that whole discussion of FGs being "automatic" and from what distance - very subjective. Call "automatic" a 95% success rate. I expect that from the 40 to the goal line. Factors outside the kickers control affect that, as does inside or outside, natural turf or artificial. And I expect most NFL kickers will be 90 plus % from 40-50. Beyond 50? Seems that keeps getting stretched each year as kickers have become much more athletic and disciplined.

I don't have any stats, and they wouldn't mean much. I do remember Crosby was pretty solid from 50 and inside. I'm not a religious guy, but even I say a prayer when Carlson lines up..... Religious or not, we shouldn't have to pray when the K trots out on the field.

 

[Thirteen Below]

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I'm not a religious guy, but even I say a prayer when Carlson lines up..... Religious or not, we shouldn't have to pray when the K trots out on the field.

Or at the very least, not have to cringe, cover our eyes, and say "oh god I can't stand to watch this".

 

[Heyjoe4]

-

Or at the very least, not have to cringe, cover our eyes, and say "oh god I can't stand to watch this".

I think your description nails it. And it's on every......single......kick.

 

[Poppa San]

I don't remember any of them costing the Packers a game,

His missed an XP game 9 vs Steelers. Lost by 4. Needed a TD on final drive and not a FG to tie. Though the INT the previous drive just outside the red-zone probably hurt more. No other missed XP affected the final outcome.

 

[mradtke66]

2023 NFL Kicking | Pro-Football-Reference.com

Check out the 2023 NFL Kicking Stats and more on Pro-football-reference.com

www.pro-football-reference.com

If you don’t want to believe me that’s fine. Spend the time I did to compile the data. It’s right here. I just used 2023 because I feel that’s pretty relevant.

Again, this is slightly different data. This is aggregate, the post I referenced has ever yard marker broken down.

All due respect I think Reddit needs to update their info so I’m going to call bluff on that.

This is one person's post. I'd like more up to date stats, but I don't have time to find that. Maybe you could ask him? I also trust 10 years of data vs. 1. 2023 could be evidence of an increase in kicks made. It could also be an anomaly.

I don’t believe other peoples math so I do my own research.

I'm not trusting his math, just his counting. I did the math myself.

I know 87% doesn’t sound that bad for XPM without looking,

I'm concerned about his XPs as well, but to me that is a distinct category. His FGs are inline with what we want, XPs are not. He's perfect on FGs within 39 yards and less. The difference makes me ask, "What is different about XPs?" not make a grand statement.

 

[mradtke66]

And I expect most NFL kickers will be 90 plus % from 40-50. Beyond 50? Seems that keeps getting stretched each year as kickers have become much more athletic and disciplined.

Your expectations are too high, Justin Tucker excluded . Again, from 2009-2019, all kickers in the NFL made 85% of their kicks from 40 yards. 71.2% at 49 yards and 71 flat from 50.

I don't have any stats, and they wouldn't mean much. I do remember Crosby was pretty solid from 50 and inside.

I cannot find by yard break downs, but 40-50s, Crosby was a career 73.88% from 40-50 yards.

 

[OldSchool101]

Hands down the best theory I've heard about AC. Well done lambeu, well done.

Maybe if his Kicking career doesn’t pan out he can become a Plant Manager. They say his Plant footing is fab

 

[Heyjoe4]

His missed an XP game 9 vs Steelers. Lost by 4. Needed a TD on final drive and not a FG to tie. Though the INT the previous drive just outside the red-zone probably hurt more. No other missed XP affected the final outcome.

Good point. Missing an XP and forcing a TD instead of a tying FG is a big deal. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Your expectations are too high, Justin Tucker excluded . Again, from 2009-2019, all kickers in the NFL made 85% of their kicks from 40 yards. 71.2% at 49 yards and 71 flat from 50.



I cannot find by yard break downs, but 40-50s, Crosby was a career 73.88% from 40-50 yards.

Thanks for the updates. Yeah I was way high. What surprises me is the drop-off from 40-45. Then again "inside the 40" could include a lot of very short FGs, so it's not an easy comparison.

I'm glad I didn't make any bets. I would have guessed Crosby was closer to 80% from 40-50. Thanks for the info!

And Justin Tucker is an aberration. Doesn't seem to matter if the game is inside or outside, turf or grass, windy, bad holds - the guy just nails every kick, or is seems that way.

 

[mradtke66]

Then again "inside the 40" could include a lot of very short FGs, so it's not an easy comparison.

That was part of the point I was trying make. The "round number" groupings do some weird stuff to the stats. The dataset I was looking at puts the 90% cutoff at 35 yards (a weird crater of 86% at 34 yards, makes me wonder if there is some weird likelyhood of kicking 34 yarders as game winners? Or just a funny stat).

In addition of those kicks being easier, because they are shorter, that's 18 possible kicking distances. Even "inside the 40" is skewed by them, because that's only 5 more distances vs. the first 18. "Inside the 45" is similarly skewed for the same reason: 18 possible distances vs. 10.

If we want to be human and love our base10 groupings, it might be better to do groups of 10s starting from 18 (1 yard line, 10 yard endzone, long snap: shortest possible FG is 18 yards) ala:

18-27 (100-97%)
28-37 (95-86%)
38-47 (83-75)
48-57 (68-54)

I don't like that, because in the second grouping, we already have a pretty wide variance. Grouping by 5s seems better, but that could just due to a finer grouping.

Counter proposal that is at best half-baked: We should instead rate kickers by what distance is their 95, 90, 85, and 80 percent accuracy mark is. The 10 year dataset would say 33 yards, 35 yards, 37 yards, 40 yards, and 42 yards. By drawing lines, it'd be easier to say if a kicker is better than average and add the qualifier of at what distances.

Of course we'd want a real statistician to draw those lines.

 

[OldSchool101]

That was part of the point I was trying make. The "round number" groupings do some weird stuff to the stats. The dataset I was looking at puts the 90% cutoff at 35 yards (a weird crater of 86% at 34 yards, makes me wonder if there is some weird likelyhood of kicking 34 yarders as game winners? Or just a funny stat).

In addition of those kicks being easier, because they are shorter, that's 18 possible kicking distances. Even "inside the 40" is skewed by them, because that's only 5 more distances vs. the first 18. "Inside the 45" is similarly skewed for the same reason: 18 possible distances vs. 10.

If we want to be human and love our base10 groupings, it might be better to do groups of 10s starting from 18 (1 yard line, 10 yard endzone, long snap: shortest possible FG is 18 yards) ala:

18-27 (100-97%)
28-37 (95-86%)
38-47 (83-75)
48-57 (68-54)

I don't like that, because in the second grouping, we already have a pretty wide variance. Grouping by 5s seems better, but that could just due to a finer grouping.

Counter proposal that is at best half-baked: We should instead rate kickers by what distance is their 95, 90, 85, and 80 percent accuracy mark is. The 10 year dataset would say 33 yards, 35 yards, 37 yards, 40 yards, and 42 yards. By drawing lines, it'd be easier to say if a kicker is better than average and add the qualifier of at what distances.

Of course we'd want a real statistician to draw those lines.

I appreciate the hard work mrad.
I wonder also if as the years go by, the proficiency improves like many other areas. There’s a credible reason for backing up the XPA a decade ago or whatever.


Hopefully this will become a non issue and we see Carlson trending up. He’ll have plenty opportunity coming up.

 

[mradtke66]

I wonder also if as the years go by, the proficiency improves like many other areas.

I would presume it would. Your 2023 numbers are higher, but iirc, only on the order of 2%. That could be gradual improvement, that could be an abnormal year. We'd have to look at multiple years and look for a trend.

The one area that super important is ~33. That comes up numerous times for both teams per game. Plus to me (I don’t have time to do more work on it) just off the cuff, if a Kicker is in the bottom 25% for XPA, I have hard team believing he’s going to be upper echelon on the bulk of Kicks farther out.

It seems unlikely, but also possible. Anders already breaks this pattern by making 100% of his field goals in the 30-39 range, but only making 87.2

I’m most concerned with those FG or XPA in XPA range. Call it under <35.

Slight tangent: The NFL obviously wanted more missed XPAs or rather, make them less automatic. Approaching 100% is pretty boring. They must have had a desired pass/fail rate when they moved it to where they did. Were they hoping for 95%? 90%? Were it me, I'd back it up until it's only slightly safer than the 2PT. If 2PTs are 45% successful, I'd want XPAs to be 91% successful. The 10 year dataset says 33-35 yards, with a range of 94 and 90 percent. Seems they had roughly the same idea.

In 2023, XPAs were almost 96% successful. One line of questions, one thought:

Q: what is different about XPAs and regular kicks? Are they practiced differently? Should something change with how Anders is practicing one vs. the other?

Thought: We might want to back up the XPA line a couple yards to get that percentage down.

 

[Heyjoe4]

That was part of the point I was trying make. The "round number" groupings do some weird stuff to the stats. The dataset I was looking at puts the 90% cutoff at 35 yards (a weird crater of 86% at 34 yards, makes me wonder if there is some weird likelyhood of kicking 34 yarders as game winners? Or just a funny stat).

In addition of those kicks being easier, because they are shorter, that's 18 possible kicking distances. Even "inside the 40" is skewed by them, because that's only 5 more distances vs. the first 18. "Inside the 45" is similarly skewed for the same reason: 18 possible distances vs. 10.

If we want to be human and love our base10 groupings, it might be better to do groups of 10s starting from 18 (1 yard line, 10 yard endzone, long snap: shortest possible FG is 18 yards) ala:

18-27 (100-97%)
28-37 (95-86%)
38-47 (83-75)
48-57 (68-54)

I don't like that, because in the second grouping, we already have a pretty wide variance. Grouping by 5s seems better, but that could just due to a finer grouping.

Counter proposal that is at best half-baked: We should instead rate kickers by what distance is their 95, 90, 85, and 80 percent accuracy mark is. The 10 year dataset would say 33 yards, 35 yards, 37 yards, 40 yards, and 42 yards. By drawing lines, it'd be easier to say if a kicker is better than average and add the qualifier of at what distances.

Of course we'd want a real statistician to draw those lines.

Great stuff! Thank you. You may not be a statistician but you’re a good mathematician. Base 10 takes me back.

 

[milani]

This is a potential super bowl year. I don't think we should be keeping a kicker who we hope will be better next year.

Tough decisions.

 

[Heyjoe4]

Tough decisions.

Poppa San made a good point - there are 50-60 guys competing for a K job right now. There may be a guy out there who gets cut but who could be better than Carlson or Joseph, or at least worth a look.

gopkrs is right. To paraphrase, in a year with legitimate SB expectations, a solid kicking game is a must-have. SB champions are solid on offense, defense, and STs. Remember how the Packers won the SB in 1997 - with a huge boost from STs.

 

[sschind]

Poppa San made a good point - there are 50-60 guys competing for a K job right now. There may be a guy out there who gets cut but who could be better than Carlson or Joseph, or at least worth a look.

gopkrs is right. To paraphrase, in a year with legitimate SB expectations, a solid kicking game is a must-have. SB champions are solid on offense, defense, and STs. Remember how the Packers won the SB in 1997 - with a huge boost from STs.

The problem is no matter who they choose we might not, I'd even say we probably won't know if we have a solid kicking game until its too late. There's maybe 10 teams that can honestly say they have a solid kicking game going into the season and even that could change pretty easily. Guys getting cut may may be worth a look but then again maybe not.

I'm sure Gute will choose the guy he thinks will be the best but the fact that no one had stepped up and taken over the race tells me that no matter who they choose it won't be without some hesitation.

 

[El Guapo]

This is a potential super bowl year. I don't think we should be keeping a kicker who we hope will be better next year.

Okay. What about next year? Is that a potential Super Bowl year too? What about 2028?

This is the same type of thinking that lead Mike Zimmer to cut Carlson's brother. We may or may not be a Super Bowl team this season. Who's to say that Carlson can't be a big part of the reason that we win a Super Bowl the next few seasons.

Gutekunst has largely displayed good talent evaluation skills so far. I trust that he and Rich Bisachia will properly evaluate if they think Carlson will turn into a great kicker. The Packers organization has been great at avoiding the short-sighted thinking, tending to look for what will keep us in the upper tier for the long haul. I appreciate that.

 

[El Guapo]

I'm sure Gute will choose the guy he thinks will be the best but the fact that no one had stepped up and taken over the race tells me that no matter who they choose it won't be without some hesitation.

Agreed. When the Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2000 they knew that they didn't have an elite QB, so the rest of the team did what was needed to win. Our 2010 team did the same thing with all of the injuries - we overcame problems and won with guys like Frank Zombo and Erik Walden starting on defense. This season may come down to a FG kick, but I truly expect the rest of the team to do what they need to do to win. Don't leave your mess for someone else to clean up.

 

[OldSchool101]

Agreed. When the Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2000 they knew that they didn't have an elite QB, so the rest of the team did what was needed to win. Our 2010 team did the same thing with all of the injuries - we overcame problems and won with guys like Frank Zombo and Erik Walden starting on defense. This season may come down to a FG kick, but I truly expect the rest of the team to do what they need to do to win. Don't leave your mess for someone else to clean up.

Yeah. Whatever the case I think we’ll be adequate Kicking. IF Carlson just cleans up a few XP misses and 1-2 more FG across the season he’d be fine.

 

[Heyjoe4]

The problem is no matter who they choose we might not, I'd even say we probably won't know if we have a solid kicking game until its too late. There's maybe 10 teams that can honestly say they have a solid kicking game going into the season and even that could change pretty easily. Guys getting cut may may be worth a look but then again maybe not.

I'm sure Gute will choose the guy he thinks will be the best but the fact that no one had stepped up and taken over the race tells me that no matter who they choose it won't be without some hesitation.

All valid points. And the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. It's hard to believe that another team's cut K is better than what Carlson and Joseph have shown. And there's no time to really evaluate the player before a decision has to be made.

It's not my decision, but I'd go with Carlson. He has upside where Joseph, at this point in his career, has shown what he's got.

Kickers get very little in-game experience. Maybe it takes a year or two for some guys to settle down. It happened with Crosby, it happened with Carlson's brother. Finally, this team has enough experience that relying on a K is hopefully not an every-game issue.