Mason Crosby is a below-average NFL kicker. If you disagree, please allow me to prove it to you.
I really didn’t want to write about Mason Crosby again. Most of you know how I feel and I’ve handled the topic before. I’ve railed on the Packers coddling of Crosby. I’ve presented some stats that questioned Crosby being rewarded with a 100% raise in 201o.
Yet, some of you still believe (or have convinced yourselves) that the Packers are lucky to have Crosby. You have a ready set of excuses.
- He kicks in the cold weather.
- He’s has to kick a lot of long field goals.
- He went five for six during the Packers playoff run.
- He does a great job with kickoffs.
- He’s not great, but he’s an above-average NFL kicker.
- There is nobody available that would be any better.
The first three of those statements are true but are not valid excuses, as I will show. The last three items are just outright untrue. If you believe them, you also believe in unicorns and pots of gold at the end of rainbows. I am going to dispel all of these myths with something that can not be disputed – cold hard facts.
I don’t dislike Mason Crosby – really, I don’t. I even gave him a “B” in our end-of-year player evaluations for 2010 (mostly because of his performance during the playoff run). But what I do dislike is the plethora of fans who pay no attention to the facts. They create their own reality and support their stance with throw-away one liners that have little substance.
So, consider this my “Mason Manifesto.” I am going to present to you the real facts and debunk each of those myths mentioned above.
First, some background facts:
Crosby’s overall field goal percentages from High School to the NFL:
HS Y4 63.6%
COL Y1 77.8%
COL Y2 82.6%
COL Y3 75.0%
COL Y4 67.9%
NFL Y1 79.5%
NFL Y2 79.4%
NFL Y3 75.0%
NFL Y4 78.6%
In the last four years, here’s how many NFL kickers (with 20 or more attempts) had a FG% of 80% or higher and where Crosby ranked overall.
2007 23 – Crosby ranked 23rd of 28 kickers with 20 or more attempts (lower 19th percentile)
2008 25 – Crosby ranked 26th of 29 kickers with 20 or more attempts (lower 11th percentile)
2009 18 – Crosby ranked 23rd of 28 kickers with 20 or more attempts (lower 17th percentile)
2010 17 – Crosby ranked 19th of 25 kickers with 20 or more attempts (lower 24th percentile)
1. Mason Crosby Has to Kick in Cold Weather
Yes, he does. But so do other kickers. The argument goes that Crosby’s FG percentage would be higher if this weren’t the case. Well, of course, but is he the only kicker this applies to? Of course not. For a dose of reality, one would have to look at how he compares to other kickers that kick in cold weather. Well, allow me:
I chose teams from 9 other cold weather cities with dome-less stadiums (PHIL, NYJ, NYG, CHI, CLE, BUF, CIN, PIT, NE). Where did Crosby’s FG % rank when compared to these kickers?
2007: 9th out of 10
2008: 9th out of 10
2009: Tied for 9th/10th
2010: 6th out of 10
So, when compared to other kickers playing in cold weather, he still comes out near the bottom. We can now say, whatever the typical weather conditions, Crosby is ALWAYS near the bottom in FG %.
Bonus Fact: Last season, 4 of these cold-weather kickers had as many or more attempts from 50+ yards as Mason Crosby.
Another thing to consider: In how many games did Crosby really have to kick in cold weather? I went back and looked at the Packers schedule the last four years and games from mid-November on. Taking into account road games in domes and warm weather cities, Crosby did not have to kick in very many cold weather games at all:
2007 – 1
2008 – 2
2009 – 2
2010 – 3
So lets just put the whole cold weather theory where it belongs – buried under a big snowdrift.
Mason Crosby has to kick a lot of long field goals.
In the last four years, Crosby has taken 21 attempts from 50+ yards and made 10 of them. A respectable average from that distance, I would guess at first. Lets look at his numbers each season:
2007 – 3 of 5 7 other kickers with at least 5 attempts from 50+ yds – Crosby tied tied for 3-4 position out of 8.
2008 – 3 of 6 6 other kickers with at least 6 attempts from 50+ yds – Crosby tied for 5-6 position out of 7.
2009 – 2 of 6 4 other kickers with at least 6 attempts from 50+ yds – Crosby was last out of 5.
2010 – 2 of 4 12 other kickers with at least 6 attempts from 50+ yds – Crosby tied tied for 8-9-10 position out of 13.
So it seems that while Crosby does take a good number of attempts from 50+ yards, his success rate is not up to par compared to his peers. Sorry, but you can’t use this as an excuse when other players are doing the same thing Crosby is, but are just being more successful at it. Taking long kicks influences Crosby’s average not because he has to take them, but because he’s not that successful at it. The blame falls squarely on Crosby’s shoulders.
Mason Crosby does a very good job with kickoffs.
Lets look right at Crosby’s numbers and where he ranked: (Among kickers with at least 30 kickoff attempts)
2007 – 63.0 avg. Ranked 14th, 82.8% returned, Ranked 7th.
2008 – 63.7 avg. Ranked 21st, 78.3% returned, Ranked 8th.
2009 – 63.0 avg. Ranked 27th 81.9% returned, Ranked 16th.
2010 – 61.6 avg. Ranked 32nd 90.5% returned, Ranked 29th.
See a pattern here? Crosby has dropped in the rankings every season as compared to other NFL kickers.
Oh, you want to use the cold weather excuse here too? Let’s compare his kickoffs to other cold weather kickers:
2007 – 63.0 avg. Ranked 3rd of 10, 82.8% returned, Ranked 1st of 10.
2008 – 63.7 avg. Ranked 4th of 10, 78.3% returned, Ranked 1st of 10.
2009 – 63.0 avg. Ranked 9th of 10, 81.9% returned, Ranked 5th of 10.
2010 – 61.6 avg. Ranked 9th of 10, 90.5% returned, Ranked 9th of 10.
Same trend.
The only excuse Crosby apologists could try to use with regards to kickoffs is this one: In 2010, Crosby was asked to use more positional kicking techniques in certain games to help shrink the field against dangerous returners. Certainly, this affected his overall average. But even if we raise Crosby to a 63.0 average (same as in 2009), he would still rank in the 20s. Not the desired location for a “great”, “very good” or even “above average” kicker.
He’s not great, but he’s an above-average NFL kicker.
Well this one’s easy. If you’ve been following along, the numbers above are all you need to see. Crosby has never ranked in the upper half of field goal kickers. Never. In fact, he’s never been ranked higher than the lower 25%.
There is nobody available that would be any better than Mason Crosby.
I’ll tackle this one from two separate angles.
1) How do you know if you don’t look? The biggest problem I’ve had with the Packers’ handling of Mason Crosby is the coddling he has received. For the last three seasons, Crosby has had no competition in camp. It was his job. There were no other kickers brought in to give Crosby a little extra incentive. While I’m not saying that he did, Crosby could have just coasted through camp, without having to work extra hard to ensure his job.
Plenty of NFL kickers have beat out the incumbents to win a job in training camp. The example most of you will know is Ryan Longwell. He was brought in as a training camp leg despite the Packers having used a 3rd round draft pick on Penn State’s Brett Conway. When Conway struggled, Longwell stole the job away.
The NFL is all about competition for jobs. Every player knows that. Why should kicker be any different? And what exactly about the stats above would make you want to hand Crosby the job and not have a fall-back option? This might be the only thing about Ted Thompson’s regime that I just don’t understand.
2) When your kicker is always ranked in the bottom 25% of the league, there are ALWAYS better options. Looking at the last two seasons, there were two free agents that would have been a certain upgrade over Crosby:
2010, Jay Feely, 82.3% lifetime average, kicked 88.9% in 2010 season
2010, Shayne Graham, 86% lifetime average, kicked 100% in 2010 season (12 for 12 in 8 games)
2009, Rob Bironis, 85.6% lifetime average, kicked 84.4% in 2009
2009, Shayne Graham, 86% lifetime average, kicked 82.1% in 2009 season
At the time, I rationalized Thompson’s lack of interest to his not wanting to spend much money at the kicker position (I guess that’s out the window now). He was certainly looking to save that money to help re-sign some of the Packers’ own players. And I didn’t have a problem with that. I never really expected Thompson to sign a free agent kicker. But don’t say there were no better options -there were.
Crosby went five for six during the Packers playoff run.
Yes he sure did. First of all, does six games a career make? Do we throw out his past history and base everything on his last six games? No you don’t, although I know some of you are. So lets take this a step further. Let’s take a closer look at those six attempts:
vs. NY Giants: Crosby make a 31-yarder in the third quarter with the Packers ahead by a touchdown.
vs. Chicago: Crosby makes a 23 yd. chip shot to tie the game at 3 in the third quarter.
vs. Philly: no attempts.
vs. Atlanta: Hits a 32-yarder, a 43-yarder and bonks the upright on a 50 yarder. All come in the meaningless 4th quarter after the Packers are already ahead 42-14.
vs. Chicago: no attempts.
vs. Pitt: Hits a 23 yd. chip shot to put the Packers up by 6.
Crosby took one field goal attempt in the playoffs that actually meant something. The longest kick he made during the final six games was 43 yards, and it was meaningless. The five field goals he made were from 23yds, 23yds, 32yds, 32yds and 43 yds. Three of those five were taken in a dome.
Does anyone find this impressive? He didn’t blow easy field goals, which is certainly a positive, but is this enough to hang your “Crosby is a good kicker” hat on? Hardly…
So, what is the end result of this analysis? Simple…
Mason Crosby has been a below-average NFL kicker for the last four seasons.
I don’t come to bury Mason Crosby, I merely would like to put an end to the polluted mindset that praises him without a real reason to do so. If you like Crosby because he’s a good guy, that’s fine. If you like Crosby because he signed your favorite jersey (cough… Alex…cough…), well that’s fine also. But just don’t gloss over the truth and make up excuses for his performance. They don’t wash. The numbers above don’t lie.
The End.
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Jersey Al Bracco is the founder and editor of AllGreenBayPackers.com, and the co-founder of Packers Talk Radio Network. He can be heard as one of the Co-Hosts on Cheesehead Radio and is the Green Bay Packers Draft Analyst for Drafttek.com.
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Good points and I agree with most except for 1 significant kick in the playoffs. I think there were 3, against the Giants, Bears and Pittsburgh.
Those first two weren’t playoff games and they were short kicks. I’ll give him some credit on the Bears kick because it did tie the game at that point.
It doesn’t matter if they were playoff games, they were elimination games and just as important.
I don’t know where you got your “long field goals” stats, but this is what Yahoo shows:
2007: 7 other kickers, 2 better than Crosby, tied with 1
2008: 6 other kickers, 4 better than Crosby, tied with 1
2009: 4 other kickers, 4 better than Crosby
2010: 13 other kickers, 7 better than Crosby, tied with 3
Certainly not good, but better than your numbers.
“Take every kicker’s blocked kicks away and their average goes up too.”
In his career, Crosby has had 6 of his 145 kicks blocked, or 4.1%. In comparison, the opposing kicker in GB games has had 2 of their 117 kicks blocked, or 1.7%. So GB’s awful special teams is definitely hurting his percentage.
With that in mind, and removing his blocked kicks, here are Crosby’s distance breakdowns as well as the league averages in the last four years. I removed Crosby’s playoff kicks because the average team doesn’t make the postseason.
Crosby
0-19: 100%, 4 attempts, 4 in regular season
20-29: 97.4%, 39 attempts, 38 regular
30-39: 89.5%, 38 attempts, 35 regular
40-49: 70.3%, 37 attempts, 36, regular
50-: 47.6%, 21 attempts, 19 regular
Regular season averages
0-19: 100%, 1.7 attempts
20-29: 96.2%, 34.2 attempts
30-39: 88.0%, 36.6 attempts
40-49: 73.8%, 35 attempts
50-: 54.8%, 12.9 attempts
So basically, he’s slightly above average from 40 in and below average from 40 out. However, he is asked to kick a lot more long field goals than the average kicker. In GB home games, he has hit 5-10 of 50+ field goals, while the opposing kickers has hit 2-3. The best explanation, then, is that McCarthy has more confidence in his kicker, if somewhat misplaced.
Stats were from NFL.com, but you’re right, I was off by one attempt in each of the first 3 years:
2007 7 other kickers. Crosby tied for 3-4 position
2008 6 other kickers. Crosby tied for 5-6 position
2009 4 other kickers. Crosby in last.
2010 12 other kickers. Crosby tied for 8-9-10 position.
I am going to make the correction in the article, too.
I’m curious where you found this stat: “In comparison, the opposing kicker in GB games has had 2 of their 117 kicks blocked, or 1.7%.”
I don’t agree with arbitrarily throwing out blocks. Blocked kicks can be a kicker’s fault as much as that of the team in front of him. Was it a missed block? Was it a bad hold? Or was it a bad kick?
You’ve made some good points, but I get the feeling you may be trying a bit too hard to massage the numbers for a desired result.
But however you play with the numbers, Crosby is still a below-average NFL kicker.
Oh, and you’re dead-right. MM has definitely shown more confidence in Crosby than he warrants.
Thanks for the comments.
“I’m curious where you found this stat: “In comparison, the opposing kicker in GB games has had 2 of their 117 kicks blocked, or 1.7%.”
I counted them individually, game by game, as Lucas above had suggested. It showed that Crosby kicks about the same number of field goals as his opposing number when on the road, but kicks 50% more field goals in home games.
“I don’t agree with arbitrarily throwing out blocks.”
Perhaps you’re right, but I was partly trying to show that in fact Crosby does get significantly more kicks blocked than average.
“You’ve made some good points, but I get the feeling you may be trying a bit too hard to massage the numbers for a desired result.”
Um… I am not aiming for a desired result; I am just presenting the stats that you understandably find too tedious to tabulate. Even if I include his blocked kicks, “he’s slightly above average from 40 in and below average from 40 out. However, he is asked to kick a lot more long field goals than the average kicker.” would still be true.
I did find that Lambeau field does not have a particularly poor percentage compared to other stadiums. In fact, Crosby is at his worst from 40-49 on the road, going 14-21, compared to 21-26 at home, with two blocked.
Good stuff. Thanks for the clarifications and the contributions.
I didn’t need this article to know Mason is below average. But it’s good to have handy for people making excuses. Good work, Al.
Thanks Dale. That was my main motivation. Just to have something I can point to and be done with the conversation.
How about him breaking the NFL all time record for points scored in first 3 years? Sure he kicks a lot of long field goals, but how much of that is due to the offense doing a good job scoring in the redzone (#4 in the league). Even with a lower percentage, he has the leg to give them a shot at longer distance kicks. The Packers are about development, hes only 26 yet he already holds 2 team records. I think Ted Thompson has kept him for a reason.
As LMAbacus showed above, he is a below average NFL kicker when it comes to long kicks (40+). So how is that an advantage?
Al,
I get that you have some issue with Mason and have put together so info to emphasize your point. But I have to dispute some of your numbers and how you’ve interpreted them.
So lets look first at some college numbers since you brought them up. His senior year – Mason was 2 for 9 from 50+ with 3 of those being over 60 yards. Some of the kickers with better %’s were 0 for 3, 0 for 2, 0 for 0 from 50+ so lets not base the assessment on % only since he was comparable at shorter distances to all the kickers ranked ahead of him. http://espn.go.com/college-football/statistics/player/_/stat/kicking/sort/fieldGoalsMade/year/2006.
Kickoffs: Looking at his college numbers again –
203 kickoffs, 138 touchbacks (67%) with 88 going out of the endzone. Not sure why that number has come down so much – have to wonder about the positional kicking strategy since he proved he could kick the ball long. Probably has something to do with have new starters on special teams every week due to the IR issue last year.
And where you got your cold weather stats – just wrong all over the board for 2010 which makes 2007-09 suspect as well. Only 3 along with Crosby had 20+ attempts with 84% (33% over 50), 83% (75% over 50) and 82% (0 for 3 over 50). All the other cold weather kickers had less than 20 attempts and 2 teams, CIN and NE having 2 kickers.
And finally, lets look at over numbers of 2010 regular season just to get an apples to apples comparison.
Adam Vinatieri had the best % at 93. He went 26 for 28 with no attempts over 50. Mason was 22 for 28 with 2 of 4 at 50. So Mason was 20 for 24 under 50. If that is a sub-par kicker, then many of the current kickers are in that category. At 28 attempts – every miss costs 3.57%. The top kicker – J. Brown missed 6 field goals as well according to NFL.com stats – http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?archive=false&conference=null&statisticCategory=FIELD_GOALS&season=2010&seasonType=REG&experience=null&tabSeq=0&qualified=true&Submit=Go but each miss only cost him 2.5% due to number of attempts.
You can’t just look at the rankings and %’s without putting them into context. 16 of the “top” 20 kickers had as many of more attempts than Mason – so every miss cost most of them less in a percentage score with no consideration for distances, temps or wind conditions.
“2010 – 2 of 4 12 other kickers with at least 6 attempts from 50+ yds – Crosby tied tied for 8-9-10 position out of 13.”
Again, not sure on the 2010 numbers since only 5 kickers had 5 or more attempts from 50+ and 8 kickers had 4 attempts, Mason included. No one went 4 for 4. 5 went 3 for 4 (one with less than 20 kicks for the season) and 3 went 2 for 4
Only 6 kickers were better at 40 – 49 range, Adam V. went 9 for 10 and Mason was 8 for 10. And Mason only missed 2 kicks under 40 yards. So ultimately, I want to put these numbers into context of how close in stats most kickers are. One or two misses can easily make the overall % drop 4 – 8 pts. So what we see with the 2010 is solid numbers for FG and very comparable with past years. Again, the top kicker, 2010 – Adam V. made 4 more FGs and no attempts at 50+.
Also, lets consider not just cold but wind in outdoor situations. I did not breakdown actual conditions – but 13 games were played outside were wind conditions affect the kicking game. Mason was 3 for 4 with a 40 and 41 yarder in windy conditions to score the only pts against the Jets.
I’m definitely not saying Mason is the best kicker in the league but when you analyze the numbers I can’t dispute why the Packers management would give him a new, higher $ contract. He’s solid and comparable to his peers. So I’m at a loss as to why you are so down on a mostly outdoor kicker that was only 4 misses away from the best kicker in the league that played at least 8 games indoors and kicked no FGs over 50 yards?
I appreciate the effort, but I can’t take what you have to say seriously because your claim that my numbers on cold weather kickers are wrong is, well, wrong.
Stats are on NFL.com and ProFootballFocus.com:
NYJ 39 attempts
Phi 39 attempts
Chi 30 attempts
GBP 28 attempts
Cle 28 attempts
NYG 23 attempts
Buf 21 attempts
Cin 32 attempts (3 kickers)
Pit 37 attempts (2 kickers)
NE 25 attempts (2 kickers)
Are any of the other numbers you just gave us correct? Who knows?
And finally in response to your opening sentence. I have nothing against Crosby or any other player. I have just put on display the info that is there, simply to put some reality into the equation for the Crosby excuse-makers.
If anyone has taken numbers and gone out of their way to massage them to reach their desired conclusion, (lets take just one year, throw this out, throw that out, compare him to a selected subset of kickers, etc., etc.)it is you. You worked very hard to make Crosby look good, and he still only comes out as average. That only reinforces my assessment of Crosby.
You sound like you’re Crosby’s agent. And BTW, if you are, congratulations on a GREAT job. You got Ted Thompson to pay Crosby like a top-3 NFL kicker. Amazing!
Again, I do appreciate the time you put in (I know all about that), but I’ll stick with the numbers as they are and my conclusions.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Al, Come on now, all my numbers came from NFL and ESPN per the links.
“Yes, he does. But so do other kickers. The argument goes that Crosby’s FG percentage would be higher if this weren’t the case. Well, of course, but is he the only kicker this applies to? Of course not. For a dose of reality, one would have to look at how he compares to other kickers that kick in cold weather. Well, allow me:
I chose teams from 9 other cold weather cities with dome-less stadiums (PHIL, NYJ, NYG, CHI, CLE, BUF, CIN, PIT, NE). Where did Crosby’s FG % rank when compared to these kickers?
2007: 9th out of 10
2008: 9th out of 10
2009: 10th out of 10
2010: 9th out of 10”
2010 stats per NFL.com
BUF – 76%
PIT – 93% and 68%- 2 kickers – neither with more than 20 attempts.
PHI – 84%
NYG – 83% (23 out of 28 attempts)
CLE 82%
CHI 83%
NYJ 77%
NE – 2 kickers 12/12 – 100% and 10/13 – 77%
CIN -3 kickers all under 20 attempts (79, 88, 50%)
so if we take all these kickers I’m not sure how your numbers bear out that Crosby was 9th out of 10 in 2010 for the cold weather kickers. Which makes 2007-2009 info suspect as well. I’m sure if I took the time to compare those numbers we would see the same bias.
Besides – it doesn’t look like these were broken down for temp or location or distance. Is it fair if one of these kickers that had 1 more FG than Mason but kicked 5 more attempts with no wind, temps above 40 or maybe from under 30 yards?
That’s my whole point. You use one set of number to explain multiple variables and come to a conclusion of below average. And I didn’t compare him to a subset of kickers – just the kickers with 20 or more attempts – just like many of your examples. Junk science, Al.
And no, I’m not Mason’s agent or even a huge fan. I just wanted to point out that your bias is coming through loud and clear despite your “factual” numbers.
“You worked very hard to make Crosby look good, and he still only comes out as average. That only reinforces my assessment of Crosby.” I thought you said Mason was below average? I’m not massaging any numbers just putting them into context. FG % is not the single determining factor on whether a kicker is good or not when you realize that a single completed kick is the difference between a 79% and 83%. Now look at the numbers above and you can see that 4 other kickers were one kick better than Mason. (one 25 yard chip shot, no wind, 75 degrees in Sept?)
Al, you are chasing windmills.
NFL.com
2010
Buf 16 of 21 76.2%
Chi 25 of 30 83.3%
Cin 24 of 32 75.0% (3 kickers)
Cle 23 of 28 82.1%
GBP 22 of 28 78.6%
NE 22 of 25 88% (2 kickers)
NYG 19 of 23 82.6%
NYJ 30 of 39 77.0%
Phi 32 of 38 84.2%
Pit 29 of 37 78.4% (2 kickers)
2009
Buf 28 of 33 84.9%
Chi 24 of 28 85.7%
Cin 24 of 32 75.0%
Cle 23 of 25 92.0% (2 kickers)
GBP 27 of 36 75.0%
NE 26 of 31 83.9%
NYG 27 of 32 84.3%
NYJ 30 of 36 83.3%
Phi 32 of 37 86.5%
Pit 27 of 31 87.0%
2008
Buf 30 of 38 78.9%
Chi 26 of 29 89.6%
Cin 22 of 25 88.0% (2 kickers)
Cle 30 of 36 92.0%
GBP 27 of 36 75.0%
NE 36 of 40 90.0%
NYG 36 of 39 92.3% (2 kickers)
NYJ 24 of 29 82.8%
Phi 33 of 40 82.5%
Pit 27 of 31 87.0%
2007
Buf 24 of 27 88.9%
Chi 31 of 36 86.0%
Cin 31 of 34 91.1%
Cle 26 of 30 86.6%
GBP 31 of 39 79.5%
NE 21 of 24 87.5%
NYG 23 of 27 85.2%
NYJ 29 of 36 80.5%
Phi 24 of 32 75.0%
Pit 23 of 25 92.0%
So yes, I did have an error with my 2010 numbers. Should have written it all down like above, but anyway… Here’s the correct ranking:
2007: 9th out of 10
2008: 9th out of 10
2009: Tied for 9th/10th
2010: 6th out of 10
Does that change anything? No.
As to your other points, if you have the time to examine temperature, wind chill, etc. for every kick in every game for these kickers over four years, please do! I’d love to see it.
I said: You worked very hard to make Crosby look good, and he still only comes out as average. That only reinforces my assessment of Crosby.
You replied: I thought you said Mason was below average?
My reply: Exactly! If the best you could do after playing with the numbers is make him look average, then that reinforces to me that without the massaging, he is still where the raw data places him – below average.
I’ve already spent way too much time on this. While you did point out some minor inaccuracies, I disagree with most of your other points. You are trying too hard to make him look better than he is.
Again, I appreciate the interest, but I’m moving on.
P.S. I’ve corrected the ranking in the original post,
some consideration needs to be made regarding the wind conditions, the cold, etc. i, too, am a bit disappointed with crosby’s results, but i dont consider comparisons of new york, philadelphia as cold weather environments… my experience with new york city weather is that ii is much milder than buffalo or green bay. i also think some consideration needs to be given to having a regular holder as well