I’d be very interested in cross-referencing this with the number of attempts made. Are the kickers getting better so they are making way more goals or are is the defense getting better so they have to kick from farther more often?
I think a spectrum of a single color would make the improved accuracy more obvious. Purple -> red -> orange -> yellow isn’t a progression.
I assume that correlates with the number of Australian kicking specialists play in the NFL.
Am I missing a legend for the coloring?
As for the tagline…are kickers making more kicks, a greater percentage, both? If more kicks, the color makes it seem like two yardages have the same quantity. If a greater percentage, you’re a raw 2% difference is ‘significantly more’ for two of those yardage markers?
Interesting data, but a few oddities here. The post title is 1999-2004, instead of 1999-2024. And, more relevantly, the final row is labelled 2024-2028; I would be rather interested in data from the future, but I rather seriously doubt the dataset has access to it.
I’m super curious about the 45 yard drop in 2024-2028…but I’m guessing that’s more because the data set is smaller. But it would be interesting if it wasn’t just because of the data set size.
More indoor stadiums making it easier.
We all kind of knew this, but its great to see the numbers. Longer kicks are more possible and coaches in general are more aware of what their kickers are capable of.
Not sure why you segregated out 2024 except maybe to exaggerate the improvements in 20-23. With 1/4 the data it’s not a great comparison.
I find it interesting that in 2024, kickers are more accurate from 50-55 than from 45-50.
I remember when kicks over 55 yards were like breaking news cut to them live, and nowadays if a kick under 50 yards is missed it’s like ‘why is this kicker being paid anything? Time to cut him’
There was also a rule change iirc that prevented defenses from leaping over the center and trying to block the punt
![[OC] NFL Kicker Accuracy Trends (1999-2004)](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/dtp80wd65gbe1-1920x1024.png)
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Visualization built using ggplot2 and R – play-by-play data gathered using the excellent [nflreadR](https://nflreadr.nflverse.com/articles/dictionary_pbp.html) package. Chart [originally published](https://conormclaughlin.net/2025/01/visualizing-nfl-kicker-accuracy-trends-1999-2024/) on my personal blog.
I’d be very interested in cross-referencing this with the number of attempts made. Are the kickers getting better so they are making way more goals or are is the defense getting better so they have to kick from farther more often?
I think a spectrum of a single color would make the improved accuracy more obvious. Purple -> red -> orange -> yellow isn’t a progression.
I assume that correlates with the number of Australian kicking specialists play in the NFL.
Am I missing a legend for the coloring?
As for the tagline…are kickers making more kicks, a greater percentage, both? If more kicks, the color makes it seem like two yardages have the same quantity. If a greater percentage, you’re a raw 2% difference is ‘significantly more’ for two of those yardage markers?
Interesting data, but a few oddities here. The post title is 1999-2004, instead of 1999-2024. And, more relevantly, the final row is labelled 2024-2028; I would be rather interested in data from the future, but I rather seriously doubt the dataset has access to it.
I’m super curious about the 45 yard drop in 2024-2028…but I’m guessing that’s more because the data set is smaller. But it would be interesting if it wasn’t just because of the data set size.
More indoor stadiums making it easier.
We all kind of knew this, but its great to see the numbers. Longer kicks are more possible and coaches in general are more aware of what their kickers are capable of.
Not sure why you segregated out 2024 except maybe to exaggerate the improvements in 20-23. With 1/4 the data it’s not a great comparison.
I find it interesting that in 2024, kickers are more accurate from 50-55 than from 45-50.
I remember when kicks over 55 yards were like breaking news cut to them live, and nowadays if a kick under 50 yards is missed it’s like ‘why is this kicker being paid anything? Time to cut him’
There was also a rule change iirc that prevented defenses from leaping over the center and trying to block the punt
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