Some excellent analysis of Lowery here. Was Lowery actually the best kicker of all time?

A key snippet:

"So, why should Lowery be mentioned with four kickers often cited as the best ever? Because when you compare accuracy in their respective eras, Nick Lowery was better.

In his book, 'A Statistical History of Pro Football: Players, Teams and Concepts', author Rupert Patrick published groundbreaking work that included a lengthy section on kickers. Patrick, who passed away prior to the publication of his opus, was a member of the Pro Football Researcher's Association and its 2019 winner of the Ralph Hay Award for lifetime achievement in pro football research. He was also the individual who developed metrics called PAL and PAL2 (Points Above Average, with the latter more detailed) that accurately compare kickers in their eras.

Roughly speaking, the two metrics compare points a kicker achieved over what the average kicker would've scored on the same number of kicks. The names previously mentioned - Stenerud, Andersen, Vinatieri and Tucker -- all score high (as does Hall-of-Famer Lou Groza and others). But Lowery scores higher.

In fact, he's first in both and more accurate than the average kicker by a higher margin than all other kickers.

'It was a bit of a surprise,' wrote Patrick, 'that the top career PAL score belonged to Nick Lowery; when I was compiling the data for this project I figured the career leader would either be Gary Anderson or Morten Andersen, based on sheer longevity. Neither of them would have lasted very long if they weren't outstanding kickers. The reason Lowery finished first by a big margin is that he never really had a bad season until the final season of his career.'

As for PAL2, the more detailed version, Patrick added, 'Nick Lowery tops this list, and I don't see anybody taking the top spot from him anytime soon.'

His prediction was right, though Tucker has a chance.

In 2017 Chase Stuart of Football Perspective.com, an excellent analytics site, developed his own metric that measures accuracy - a kicker's field-goal percentage above the expected percentage, broken down by 10-yard increments. He reached the same conclusion as Patrick.

'It's not much of a question as to who is the best kicker ever,' Stuart wrote. 'Until presented with evidence to the contrary, that honor belongs to Nick Lowery.'

Why? Because, compared to his peers, Lowery's kickers were accurate at a rate higher than expected. In Stuart's metric, Lowery is the best ever.

'Lowery's expected field-goal rate was 70.5 percent,' said Stuart, 'while his actual was 80.0 percent. So he was successful an extra 9.5 percent of the time he lined up to kick. That's remarkable. In short, Lowery was the most valuable field goal kicker in NFL history.'"

Lowery has passed to the abyssal reaches of the Seniors committee, but hopefully his case is heard sooner rather than later.

https://talkoffametwo.com/state-your-case/chiefs-nick-lowery-hall-of-fame

Posted by Ray on 02/18/2024 @ 19:06pm