by Bryan Knowles

(A huge and belated thanks to Bryan Knowles for helping out with Quick Reads this week, as I am busy taking care of my wife after her surgery. Everything is going fine at home, and also at work, thanks to Bryan. --Vincent Verhei)

Quick Reads doesn't normally cover the kicking game -- but this wasn't precisely a normal week in the NFL.

Blair Walsh was cut from the Minnesota Vikings this past week, after missing his fourth extra point of the season. In homage to their fallen comrade, the other kickers in the NFL apparently decided to take the week off, setting a new single-week record with 12 missed extra points.

It's not a one-week aberration, either; the league missed six extra points last week, setting a two-week record for missed extra points, as well. After setting a 35-year low with a 94.2 percent conversion rate last year, the NFL is now on a 93.6 percent pace.

Obviously, missing 12 extra points in one week is more a fluke than anything particularly special about this week. While it was windy up and down the east coast, you can't blame the weather for everything; unless the air conditioner was cranked a bit too high in Ford Field or U.S. Bank Stadium, it seems unlikely that the misses by Minnesota's Kai Forbath, Jacksonville's Jason Myers, or Detroit's Matt Prater were blown off course.

While the dirty dozen represented a high point of failure, it's just part of a two-year trend. After all, there were two days with eight missed extra points last year. The odds of teams missing 12 out of 59 attempts is exceptionally unlikely, even with the reduced rate of success kickers have had this season, but it was only a matter of time before the old record fell.

Moving the extra point back to the 15-yard line has been an unqualified success, as far as the league is concerned -- what was once a gimme play now demands at least a bit of thought. Whether games being significantly impacted by botched extra points is strategically interesting or exceptionally frustrating is left as an exercise for the reader.

However, this week's extra-point shenanigans were far from the only odd thing about the kicking game this year. 2016 has been a very strange year for field goals in general. Kickers have already missed 103 field goals this year, and we're just now getting into the part of the season where weather begins to play a major factor.

Kickers have historically gotten better and better each season, but 2016 has been a very strange year so far. Even ignoring weather factors, the league is on pace for 165 missed field goals, which would be the highest total since 2011. Factor in how field goal percentage goes down as winter sets in, however, and things look even bleaker.

NFL Field Goal Accuracy By Month, 2010-2016 Year Sept Oct Nov Dec/Jan Overall 2010 79.2% 82.8% 80.3% 85.6% 82.4% 2011 85.5% 86.0% 80.0% 80.7% 82.9% 2012 89.5% 86.0% 77.6% 82.1% 83.9% 2013 82.7% 89.3% 85.5% 88.1% 86.5% 2014 84.7% 87.6% 83.5% 80.8% 84.0% 2015 84.9% 84.2% 86.7% 82.0% 84.5% 2010-15 AVG 84.4% 86.0% 82.3% 83.2% 84.0% 2016 83.8% 83.7% 84.7% N/A 84.0%

Noisy? Yes. But it certainly doesn't bode well for kickers going forward -- and it's backed up by advanced stats.

Aaron has already talked about this somewhat in Week 8's DVOA commentary, but it's worth taking another dive into things.

Normally, you can't compare our advanced special teams stats on a one-to-one basis from season to season, because we adjust the baseline from year to year to try to set the league average close to zero. But what if we didn't do that?

We re-ran 2016's field goal numbers with 2015's baseline, to see just how much of a difference our advanced stats could find, and, well… the numbers weren't pretty.

We measure field goals in terms of expected points above average -- i.e, comparing each field goal to the average number of points scored on field goals of that distance, adjusted for weather and altitude. Here's the league-wide FG Pts+ over the past five seasons, if we were to use last year's baseline for field goals:

2012: -33.2 FG Pts+

2013: +19.7 FG Pts+

2014: -23.6 FG Pts+

2015: +2.5 FG Pts+

2016: -61.2 FG Pts+

Now, it should be noted that we are planning on re-doing late-season weather adjustments in the near future. Theoretically, the total value of field goals and the weather-adjusted total value of field goals should both be close to zero. However, since 2012, the league's combined value of field goals has been much higher than the weather-adjusted value. This suggests that the weather adjustments, figured based on the era of roughly 2004-2010, are too strong at this point.

Even if you remove the weather adjustments entirely, however, 2016 would still come in at minus-23.4 FG Pts+, league-wide. That's a disastrous total.

We have been assuming that this will eventually correct itself; there's no clear on-field reason why the kicking game has suddenly gone south. We've lowered the baselines some since 2015, but not enough to even the league out at zero; we keep waiting for kickers to get back to business as usual, but it's yet to happen.

Here are the league-wide numbers by week for 2016, with both the non-adjusted and weather adjusted totals. The numbers for Week 11 do not include the Monday night game between Houston and Oakland, but all the other games are accounted for:

NFL FG Pts+ By Week, 2016 Week Non-Adj Wea. Adj 1 1.0 -5.9 2 3.9 -3.3 3 1.6 -4.6 4 13.1 10.3 5 3.5 0.1 6 4.3 1.9 7 -2.6 -6.7 8 -4.4 -7.2 9 0.8 1.2 10 9.1 7.1 11 -7.0 -7.1 TOTAL 23.5 -14.4

The windy conditions much of the NFL experienced this last week kept it from being the absolute worst week for field goals and extra points this season, even with the 12 missed extra points. Instead, Week 8 just barely squeaks out as the bottom of the barrel so far -- only four missed extra points, but nine missed field goals, including Cairo Santos' 28-yard doink indoors at Lucas Oil Stadium.



[ad placeholder 3]

The issue is compounded because there have been so many clutch field goals missed this season. If someone hooks a 42-yarder wide left in the middle of the first quarter, we're much less likely to remember it compared to a kick at the end of the game or in overtime -- and that's where a significant chunk of the falloff has occurred.

From 2010 to 2015, teams made 77.1 percent of their field goals in the most crucial situations -- five minutes or less in the fourth quarter or in overtime, with their team either tied or losing by three or fewer points. In 2016 so far, that number has fallen to 71.1 percent, and it feels that an unusually high number of the misses came in nationally televised games, like the debacle that was the Seattle-Arizona tie back in Week 7. There definitely has been a drop off in field goal efficiency this season, but that drop off is exaggerated by the clutch nature of the failures.

But the drop off in those "clutch" kicks isn't the biggest change from recent years. Looking at the numbers, one thing immediately off the page: the NFL has forgotten how to kick long field goals.

Throw out all field goals of 50 yards or more, and 2016 suddenly looks a lot better. Kickers are making 89.4 percent of field goals shorter than that, more than they did in either of the last two seasons. Cross that 50-yard mark, however, and the kicking game regresses by a decade. The NFL has made just 53.6 percent of those long field goals this year -- well short of last year's 65.0 percent total, and the lowest total since 2009.

While still well above historical baselines, long field goal accuracy hasn't hit this much of a valley since the mid-'90s, and these numbers are likely to only get worse as the weather gets less favorable. Five kickers -- Sebastian Janikowski, Wil Lutz, Jason Myers, Nick Novak, and Mike Nugent -- have already missed three or more 50-plus-yard field goals this season. That wouldn't be particularly shocking if we were talking about full-season numbers; 2014 saw nine kickers whiff that much from distance. However, as far as I can tell from PFR's play database, there have never before in league history been more than three such players in the first 10 weeks of a season.

The last time kickers were this inaccurate from distance, coaches simply didn't attempt as many long field goals. As accuracy has steadily gone up over time, coaches have become more and more comfortable trotting out their kickers to boom long distance tries. In the 1990s and 2000s, teams averaged about 2.8 long field goal attempts per season. In the 2010s so far, teams are averaging 4.5 attempts per year, and that number continues to go up.



[ad placeholder 4]

It's a testament to the incredibly consistent progression of kicking skill that these long-distance shots have become consistent enough to be worth the risk; more 50-plus-yard field goals were made last season than were even attempted as recently as 2007. This year, however, the trend has reversed itself, and coaches haven't adjusted their strategy accordingly.

The record for missed 50-plus-yard field goals in a season is 60, set in 1986 and tied in 2014. Kickers have already missed 45 this year and are on pace to obliterate that record. Coaches keep trotting their kickers out there, expecting to see the same sorts of results we have seen the last five years or so, and they keep being unpleasantly surprised.

What does this mean for the rest of the season? Should teams eschew longer field goals and try to convert fourth downs from that part of the field, in the same way two-point conversion attempts have gone up as extra point accuracy has gone down? Well, yes, they should, but that's more because NFL coaches are overly conservative in those situations in general, as opposed to something about this spate of missed field goals being predictive going forward.

It looks like just a confluence of bad luck and bad decisions all happening at once. Perhaps Oakland should stop treating the 38-year-old Janikowski as if he's the same player who once attempted a 76-yard field goal and had it only seem a little ridiculous. Perhaps New Orleans should trust their future Hall of Fame quarterback to pick up fourth-and-5 rather than having their rookie kicker try to boot the ball 50-plus yards. Perhaps teams, in general, should stop assuming 50-yard field goals are a sure thing and actually attempt to move the ball closer at the end of games.

And perhaps next time you're screaming at the TV as your team misses another clutch, long-range kick, you'll be somewhat comforted to know that, this year at least, you're not alone.

Quarterbacks Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Sacks Total

DYAR Pass

DYAR Rush

DYAR Opp 1. Dak Prescott DAL 27/36 301 3 0 1 252 241 10 BAL From the 1:04 mark of the second quarter to the end of the game, Prescott went 18-of-19 for 200 yards and two touchdowns. A 20th pass resulted in a DPI for 33 more yards. 2. Kirk Cousins WAS 21/30 375 3 0 2 174 172 2 GB No, Cousins didn't produce an explosive play every time he threw the ball -- it just felt that way. He threw four deep passes against Green Bay, all in the second half, and he completed all four of them for 195 yards and two touchdowns. 3. Russell Wilson SEA 18/31 272 1 0 1 161 145 -4 PHI That's 145 DYAR passing, minus-4 DYAR rushing, and 20 DYAR receiving for his 15-yard touchdown grab. Wilson's passing DYAR is nearly doubled due to opponent adjustments -- including sacks, Wilson averaged 8.50 yards per dropback against Philadelphia. That's three-quarters of a yard better than the next-best quarterback against the Eagles this year (Kirk Cousins averaged 7.74 in Week 6), and Wilson joins Matt Stafford as the only quarterbacks to start against Philadelphia this year and not throw an interception. 4. Derek Carr OAK 20/30 300 3 1 0 156 156 0 HOU Carr started off great (7-of-7 for 58 yards, plus a 33-yard DPI), and he finished even better (6-of-9 for 192 yards and two touchdowns, plus a 24-yard DPI). But he had a rough go of things in between, going 8-of-15 for 45 yards with an interception. 5. Aaron Rodgers GB 26/41 351 3 0 2 133 120 13 WAS This ranking is kind of amazing considering Rodgers started out 1-of-5 for zero yards, that his longest completion of the first half gained only 15 yards, and that he ended the half on back-to-back sacks. In the second half, though, while always trailing by at least six points, he went 13-of-19 for 251 yards and two touchdowns, with six completions of 20 yards or more. 6. Jameis Winston TB 24/39 331 1 0 1 111 127 -16 KC Third downs: 12-of-14 for 133 yards and ten conversions, including a touchdown. 7. Tom Brady NE 25/39 280 4 0 1 103 105 -2 SF The slick conditions in San Francisco may have dulled Brady's deep ball a bit; he was just 2-for-9 for 77 yards on passes thrown more than 15 yards downfield, including missing Julian Edelman six times. 8. Alex Smith KC 24/31 272 1 1 0 96 83 13 TB Smith added a rushing touchdown late in the second quarter. This was the first game in Smith's career where he ran for a touchdown yet still lost; he had been 10-0 (including the playoffs) entering this week. 9. Matthew Stafford DET 24/33 278 0 0 3 66 75 -9 JAC 10. Eli Manning NYG 21/36 227 2 0 0 63 62 2 CHI Manning's 15-yard touchdown to Sterling Shepard put the Giants up 22-16 in the third quarter, a score the New York defense held until the end. And it's a good thing too, because they got no help from Manning after that as Giants quarterback completed only two of his seven passes after the Shepard touchdown, and those two completions were both third-down plays that came up short of the sticks. 11. Drew Brees NO 35/44 287 2 1 3 58 56 3 CAR With Atlanta on a bye this week, Brees passed Matt Ryan for the league lead in passing DYAR, 1,140 to 1,117. Should he maintain that lead, he would win this third DYAR crown -- he also finished first in 2008 and 2011. 12. Andrew Luck IND 15/28 262 2 1 2 55 50 5 TEN Luck was put under more pressure than normal this week, with the Titans getting pressure on him on 47 percent of his dropbacks. Luck thrived, though, going 9-for-13 for 129 yards and two touchdowns against the blitz. Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Sacks Total

DYAR Pass

DYAR Rush

DYAR Opp 13. Joe Flacco BAL 23/35 269 1 0 1 45 40 5 DAL The Cowboys sat back and gave Flacco plenty of time, daring him to beat them with the deep ball. Flacco completed just three of his eight deep pass targets, none of them thrown farther than 19 yards downfield. 14. Sam Bradford MIN 20/28 169 1 0 2 41 41 0 ARI 15. Jay Cutler CHI 17/30 252 1 1 4 14 14 0 NYG Cutler struggled badly after crossing midfield. On the Giants' side of the 50, he went 7-of-12 for 70 yards with an interception, two sacks, and a fumble. And that's overstating his accomplishments, because four of those seven completions were failed plays, including gains of 4, 11, and 12 yards on plays with at least 19 yards to go for a first down. 16. Jared Goff LARM 17/31 134 0 0 1 -7 0 -7 MIA So THAT'S why Jeff Fisher stuck with Case Keenum for so long. Goff went 0-for-4 on deep passes. He converted only three third downs, going 7-of-11 for 45 yards with a sack and a DPI in the process. On Miami's half of the field, he went 6-of-10 for 48 yards, including zero passes thrown in the red zone. 17. Marcus Mariota TEN 25/38 290 2 0 5 -8 -11 4 IND Mariota has now thrown two or more touchdown passes in seven consecutive games. That's the longest streak in franchise history. 18. Brock Osweiler HOU 26/39 243 1 1 2 -16 -21 5 OAK 19. Ryan Tannehill MIA 24/34 172 2 1 4 -22 -34 12 LARM Tannehill in the first three quarters: 11-for-18 for 56 yards and one interception. Tannehill in the fourth quarter: 13-for-16 for 116 yards and two touchdowns. 20. Cody Kessler CLE 7/14 128 0 1 4 -29 -25 -4 PIT Neither Browns quarterback performed very well under pressure; they took a combined eight sacks against a Steelers defense which had recorded only 13 sacks on the year. 21. Carson Wentz PHI 23/45 218 2 2 2 -30 -32 3 SEA Wentz had one streak in this game of four incompletions and a sack, and another when he went 5-of-15 for 20 yards with a sack, an interception, and two fumbles. He played his best in the fourth quarter, when the game was realistically out of reach: 12-of-21 for 132 yards and a touchdown. 22. Cam Newton CAR 14/33 192 1 0 2 -38 -29 -9 NO Newton's final pass in this game resulted in a completion for 18 yards. That broke a string where he had gone 1-of-8 for minus-2 yards. That is how you, as a quarterback, turn a 23-3 lead into a 23-20 win. Rk Player Team CP/AT Yds TD INT Sacks Total

DYAR Pass

DYAR Rush

DYAR Opp 23. Ben Roethlisberger PIT 23/36 167 0 0 0 -38 -38 0 CLE QB wins are not actually a stat worth paying much attention to, but Big Ben now has 10 wins in Cleveland Browns Stadium. That's tied for most all-time, despite the fact Roethlisberger gets just one game per year in Cleveland. 24. Colin Kaepernick SF 16/30 206 2 0 5 -45 -55 10 NE Kaepernick's play-by-play in this game is just silly. He threw only one incomplete pass in the first half, going 8-of-9 for 116 yards. That grossly overestimates his value, though, because he was also sacked five times and fumbled twice. Then he made up for things in the second half by throwing 13 incompletions, including NINE incomplete passes in a row. You will find eight quarterbacks in this table who only threw nine incompletions each in entire games. 25. Carson Palmer ARI 21/38 198 2 2 4 -52 -58 6 MIN After his 4-yard touchdown to David Johnson left the Cardinals trailing 30-24, Palmer had three drives with a chance to take the lead. On those three drives, he went 2-of-5 for 4 yards with three sacks and an intentional grounding. 26. Tyrod Taylor BUF 19/27 166 0 1 2 -69 -58 -11 CIN With no Sammy Watkins and no Robert Woods, Taylor led a dink-and-dunk offense down the field for Buffalo. It worked; Taylor became the first Buffalo quarterback to lead 15-plus-play scoring drives in back-to-back weeks since Drew Bledsoe in 2002. 27. Andy Dalton CIN 24/42 207 1 2 1 -71 -78 7 BUF Losing A.J. Green early put a damper on Cincinnati's game plan. Dalton threw just three passes further than 20 yards downfield and finished with 4.81 yards per attempt, his lowest since the loss to Indianapolis in 2014's wild card game. 28. Blake Bortles JAC 22/35 202 2 2 0 -74 -72 -2 DET Bortles now has as many interceptions bounced off a player's foot (two) as he has wins (two). 29. Josh McCown CLE 14/27 118 1 0 4 -111 -113 1 PIT Despite playing eight more snaps than Cody Kessler and completing seven more passes, McCown still finished short of Kessler's passing yards on the day.

Five Best Running Backs by DYAR (Total) Rk Player Team Runs Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR Opp 1. Ezekiel Elliott DAL 25 97 0 4/5 30 0 79 75 4 BAL A pretty mundane day, until you remember that Baltimore came into the week with the NFL's best run defense by a huge margin. Elliott had three runs of 10 or more yards against the Ravens, while getting stuffed for no gain or a loss five times. All other runners against the Ravens this season have combined for 12 runs of 10 yards or more, while getting hit for no gain or a loss 41 times. 2. Tim Hightower NO 12 69 0 8/9 57 0 57 32 25 CAR Eleven of Hightower's carries gained at least 2 yards, seven gained at least 4 yards, and his longest two runs went for 11 and 27 yards. Five of his receptions led to first downs. 3. David Johnson ARI 22 103 1 7/11 57 1 55 39 16 MIN Though his longest run went for just 11 yards, four went for 10 yards or more, while only two resulted in no gain or a loss. Five of his receptions went for first downs, including three third-down conversions. 4. Rob Kelley WAS 24 137 3 0/2 0 0 43 52 -8 GB Though he was hit for no gain or a loss four times, the undrafted rookie out of Tulane had three runs for 10 yards or more, including a 66-yarder. 5. Le'Veon Bell PIT 28 146 1 8/9 55 0 40 36 4 CLE Five runs of 10 yards or more, while getting hit for no gain just twice. Five of his receptions went for first downs (I seem to be typing that a lot this week).

Five Best Running Backs by DYAR (Rushing) Rk Player Team Runs Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR Opp 1. Ezekiel Elliott DAL 25 97 0 4/5 30 0 79 75 4 BAL 2. Rob Kelley WAS 24 137 3 0/2 0 0 43 52 -8 GB 3. David Johnson ARI 22 103 1 7/11 57 1 55 39 16 MIN 4. Le'Veon Bell PIT 28 146 1 8/9 55 0 40 36 4 CLE 5. Tim Hightower NO 12 69 0 8/9 57 0 57 32 25 CAR

Worst Running Back by DYAR (Total) Rk Player Team Runs Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR Opp 1. Jonathan Stewart CAR 18 31 1 1/4 8 0 -55 -36 -19 NO Stewart's longest run gained only 10 yards, while he was hit for no gain or a loss seven times. He had only two first downs on the day, while converting only one of his four carries with 1 or 2 yards to go for a first down.

Worst Running Back by DYAR (Rushing) Rk Player Team Runs Rush

Yds Rush

TD Rec Rec

Yds Rec

TD Total

DYAR Rush

DYAR Rec

DYAR Opp 1. Chris Ivory JAC 17 39 0 6/6 75 0 -16 -44 28 DET Ivory had no first downs on the ground, and only three successful plays. His longest run gained only 8 yards, he was hit for no gain or a loss three times, and he lost a fumble.

Five Best Wide Receivers and Tight Ends by DYAR Rk Player Team Rec Att Yds Avg TD Total

DYAR Opp 1. Doug Baldwin SEA 4 5 104 26.0 0 73 PHI That's 47 DYAR receiving, 26 passing for his 15-yard touchdown strike to Russell Wilson. All of his catches went for first downs, including gains of 44, 34, and 17 yards. 2. Steve Smith BAL 8 9 99 12.4 1 53 DAL Five of Smith's catches went for first downs, including a pair of 22-yarders, plus a 13-yard gain on third-and-12. 3. Adam Thielen MIN 5 5 65 13.0 1 49 ARI Three of Thielen's catches went for first downs; the other two were a pair of 10-yard gains on third-and-13 or more. He also gained 29 yards on a DPI. 4. Jamison Crowder WAS 3 3 102 34.0 1 48 GB A 5-yard gain on first-and-10, a 44-yard touchdown on third-and-11, and a 53-yard gain on third-and-7. 5. Dez Bryant DAL 6 8 80 13.3 2 46 BAL Yes, another player with exactly five catches that went for first downs. His longest gain went for 26 yards.