Kicker's not important, huh?

I'm reluctant to post again so soon, because I really want people to read my last post. So make sure you don't skip it, just because there's a newer one, ok? Today, boys and girls, we consider the question of "in what way would the world be different if the San Francisco 49ers actually had a decent kicker?" Specifically, I'll examine probability distributions for numbers of games won by the 49ers if they had (a) a kicker who was averagely accurate among all NFL kickers this year, and (b) a kicker who was averagely accurate among the top ten NFL kickers this year. For those of you who don't know, the 49ers shamefully lost to the lowly Arizona Cardinals last Sunday, and now sit in third place (of four) in their division, with a record of 3-5. Four of our five losses were determined in the last seconds of the game, and we lost those four games by a total margin of eight points. My methodology: nfl.com provided a table of every NFL kicker's field goal accuracy rate, broken down by distance of attempt. I imported that table into my generic Excel clone and compiled average accuracy rates for variously-distant field goals for two groups: every kicker in the NFL, and the top ten kickers in the NFL. Here are the results:

	NFL Average	Top 10 Average
1-19 yds	100.00%	NA
20-29 yds	99.21%	100.00%
30-39 yds	84.06%	94.23%
40-49 yds	73.77%	82.98%
50+ yds	54.39%	66.67%

I'm considering two hypotheticals -- the case in which the 49ers have an average kicker, and the case in which they have an elite (i.e. average among top ten) kicker. I will assume that the kicking accuracy is the only thing that changes -- I admit this is a source of potential error, but I don't believe it is likely to change the results much -- the games were all close, and I can't imagine the opponents' strategies would have been that much different we'd had three more points. Let's consider each game in turn. Week One. We actually defeated Chicago, and would have done so by even more if we'd had a better kicker. This is a win, regardless of who's kicking. Week Two. We actually lost to St. Louis, in overtime. During the regulation period, we miss on a 43-yard field goal attempt. Consulting the chart above, I conclude that we'd have a 74% of making the field goal, thereby winning the game, with an average kicker, and an 83% of winning with an elite kicker. Week Three. We actually lost to Cleveland. It was a very tight game, but I can't fault the kicking for this one. We'd lose anyway. Week Four. We actually lost to Minnesota, and no amount of kicking would have saved us from that thrashing. Week Five. We actually defeated Detroit, and we clearly get this win in both my hypotheticals too. Week Six. We lose to Seattle by one point. We miss an extra point and a 38-yard field goal. I blame the hold, not the kicker, for the extra point, so I'll ignore it. Assuming that we'd win the game with those three more points from the field goal, we have an 84% chance of winning with an average kicker, and a 94% chance with an elite one. Week Seven. We actually defeat Tampa Bay, despite horrible kicking. We win by even more in my hypotheticals. Week Eight. We actually lose to Arizona in overtime, after missing field goals of 35 and 45 yards (plus another missed XP that I'll ignore again). The average kicker makes 84% of 35-yard kicks and 74% of 45-yard kicks, which means he'll get at least one of them 96% of the time (1-(1-.84)(1-.74)). The elite kicker has a 99% chance of getting at least one of those two. (A better kicker would actually increase our chances of winning this one by a little more -- even if he missed both field goals, he probably would not kickoff out of bounds in OT, making it easier for the Cardinals to score right away. I ignore this factor because it's hard to quantify, and because the case against having a shitty kicker is already pretty damning as it is.) So weeks 2, 6, and 8 could all potentially swing from losses to wins with better kicking. How potentially? This chart shows the odds of winning each game in each case, along with the odds of winning at least four, at least five, and at least six total games out of these first eight (remember, we have two losses that kicking wouldn't help).

	NFL Average	Top 10 Average
Win Stl	73.77%	82.98%
Win Sea	84.06%	94.23%
Win Ari	95.82%	99.02%
> 3	99.83%	99.99%
>4	94.49%	98.77%
>5	59.67%	77.24%

Are you following this? I'm saying, with either an average or an elite kicker, the 49ers would be virtually certain to be at least 5-3 and in therefore in the thick of the NFC West race. Note that all three games in contention are in-division, so we'd be removing a win and a loss from at least one of Seattle and St. Louis, putting us at worst a half-game behind first place. Also with either an elite or an average kicker, we'd probably (60% with average, 77% with elite) be 6-2, which would be definitely in first place in the division and in the thick of the race for the NFC's top seed. I still hear people say that it's just not worthwhile to shell out top money for a good kicker. I hope I've demonstrated how wrong they are. If I could start the season over and trade Terrell Owens for Mike Vanderjagt, I'd do it. If you want to see my raw data, check my math, etc., send me an email.