Nice EPSN article on Mason Crosby

[Spaulding]

Read the title and almost threw up that I was complimenting ESPN but the article actually isn't too bad and supports many of what the posters here have been stating:

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/pos...crosbys-career

I have no problem when he pushes it or pulls it, just when he hooks it. Kind of like golf, you can play either for the former but when the latter shows up - good luck.

[pbmax]

Nice to know MIT is stealing Patler's work!

Seriously though, Kevin Seifert's work is usually pretty good. Thanks spaulding. Has the usual mention of the number of over 50 yard kicks plus this about Lambeau:

Based on kicking results from 3,410 games at 51 stadiums over that time period, the researchers found that Lambeau Field posed a more difficult challenge than every stadium except one: the New England Patriots' Gillette Stadium when it had a grass surface. (The conversion to artificial turf came in 2006.) Based on this model, at least, Lambeau is the most difficult active stadium to kick in.

Crosby, of course, has played half of his 96 career games at Lambeau.

Taken together, the researchers credited Crosby as the fifth-most underrated placekicker in the NFL since 2000. The total level of difficulty of his kicks, they argued, created the fifth-largest gap between his actual conversion rate and his adjusted level-of-difficulty rate.

[pbmax]

Paper is online here: http://www.sloansportsconference.com...Regression.pdf

Here is the underrated rankings:

1. Sebastian Janikowski 25%
2. Dan Carpenter 19
3. Ryan Succop 16
4. Josh Scobee 15
5. Mason Crosby 14

Those percentages after the name are the amount that their "make" percentage of FG should be adjusted considering the difficulty of their kick.

[Patler]

Interesting, for sure. I have always used Janikowski as the closest comparableto Crosby for the very reason they identify, high percentage of kicks over 50 yards.

As for the difficulty in kicking at Lambeau, at one time I had some stats regarding the frequency in which the opponent kicker missed a kick in the same games in which Crosby missed a kick. It was quite high.

[red]

these MIT smart asses are just ripping off everything i've said in almost every game thread when i've been drunk

smart my ass

m3 just seems to rely on mase way too much on those long kicks. it's like he gets around the 35 and says "ok, we're in FG range, lets play it safe". when he really should be waiting to get the the 25 or so to start thinking that way.

and i have a question for anyone who is familiar with kicking a football.

do footballs and soccer balls have the same type of flight characteristics? what i mean is, i know soccer played it most of my life, the farther off to the side you line up from the ball, the more hook your going to put on it. if you line up straight behind the ball and run straight up to it, its gonna go dead straight. if you take two steps to the left before your run up, its gonna hook.

with football kickers all using a soccer type approach and kicking style, would it also mean the the farther to the left you line up, the more hook you'll get?

[Fritz]

I wonder if they'll pick up a UDFA for serious competition. I somehow don't think TT will spend a sixth or seventh rounder on a kicker. They seem pretty committed to Crosby, whose personal problems, we hope, are ironed out now and damn well better make a bunch of kicks next year!

[Pugger]

http://www.spotrac.com/free-agents/nfl/kicker/

[swede]

Good article. I think the fact that the GB offense is high percentage in red-zone TDs removes a lot of gimmes that Mason could have used to pad his stats.

In my usual online interweb bigmouth bully kind of way I have maligned ESPN magazine as the people magazine of sports, my disdain being such that I quit even looking at it long ago. I remember articles like "This is Andre Rison Standing in Front of a Nice Car".

I found a copy in a waiting room this last week and found several really interesting, in-depth articles. The articles were so deep in the wonk that I can't even speak to their accuracy, but they were interesting and thought-provoking.

So, maybe ESPN magazine has stopped competing with SI for the title of "Most Inconsequential Sports Magazine on the Planet".

[pbmax]

So of course the Packers might be looking at some camp competition for Crosby this year according to Bob McGinn.

http://t.co/8mj4Q5Cvvc

Name is Michael Barnard and he played at Division III Fairleigh Dickinson. He was fairly terrible in college and was undrafted and not brought to camp. But he attended several kicking camps including Bob's favorite kicking consultant Gary Zauner (Milwaukee native!) in Arizona as well as seeking out help from two ex NFL kickers.

Its a cool story, you would not have pegged him for success based on his collegiate results.

Bob McGinn @BobMcGinn
After 5 years of no-compete, #Packers are considering competition for K Mason Crosby http://www.jsonline.com/sports/packe...195787631.html

[Guiness]

Interesting story, this guy has really kept at it, seemingly without much success. I wonder what has made him keep working at it 4 years after he's out of college?