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Ingridiron football, theplacekicker (PK), or simplykicker (K), is the player responsible for attempts at scoringfield goals andextra points. In most cases, the placekicker also serves as the team'skickoff specialist. The term derives from the attempted scorer kicking the ball "from placement" of a teammate holding the ball rather than by individuallydrop-kicking the ball through the goal posts.
The kicker initially was not a specialized role. Before the 1934 standardization of theprolate spheroid shape of the ball,drop kicking was the prevalent method of kicking field goals and conversions, but even after its replacement by place kicking, until the 1960s the kicker almost always doubled at another position on the roster.George Blanda,Lou Groza,Frank Gifford andPaul Hornung are prominent examples of players who were stars at other positions as well as being known for their kicking abilities. When theone-platoon system was abolished in the 1940s, the era of "two-way" players gave way to increased specialization, teams would employ a specialist at the punter or kicker position.Ben Agajanian, who started his professional career in 1945, was the first confirmed place-kicking specialist in the NFL, kicking for ten teams.[1] However, there is some evidence thatKen Strong andPhil Martinovich, both in 1939, andMose Kelsch, in 1933 and 1934, may have preceded Agajanian as players who spent their seasons doing nothing but kicking.[2]
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Because of the difference in techniques needed, to avoid leg fatigue, and to reduce the risk of injury, on the professional level most teams employ separate players to handle the jobs. The placekicker usually will onlypunt when thepunter is injured, and vice versa (one player often handles both jobs in theCanadian Football League, which has smaller active rosters than in theNFL). A professional team will occasionally even have akickoff specialist who handles only the kickoffs and serves as a backup to the kicker who handles field goals and extra points. This is typically done to further protect a premier point-scoring kicker from injury or if he, while accurate, does not have sufficient distance on kickoffs.
Amateur teams (e.g., college or high school) often do not differentiate between placekickers and punters, have different players assume different placekicking duties (for example, one person handles kicking off, another kicks long field goals, and another kicks from shorter distances), or have regular position players handle kicking duties. The last option is quite common on high school teams, when the best athletes are often the best kickers. Before the modern era of pro football, this was also the case for professional teams, particularly when most placekicks were still made in the "straight on" style outlined below.
Although kickers are protected from direct physical contact on field goal attempts, this is not generally true on kickoffs, and a kicker can see significant contact during a kick return. KickerBjörn Nittmo notably suffered severe brain damage from a hit he sustained on a kickoff in 1997.[3]
Still, due to their lack of plays in games and lack of contact compared to other positions, the top kickers in the NFL have often had extremely long careers, far beyond that of a typical NFL player. Of the eight players in NFL history who have played beyond the age of 45, six of them are kickers:Morten Andersen,Gary Anderson,John Carney,Ben Agajanian,Adam Vinatieri, andGeorge Blanda (Blanda was the oldest player in NFL history, playing until the age of 48).[4]
It is not uncommon for placekickers to be some of the smallest members of their team. However,The New York Times in 2011 wrote that NFL kickers had adopted year-round weight training and strict diets.[5]Sebastian Janikowski that year was a 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m) and 250-pound (110 kg) kicker. KickerRob Bironas, who was 6 feet (1.8 m) and 205 pounds (93 kg), noted, "I might be bigger than somewide receivers andcornerbacks."[5]
The presence of foreign born-and-raised players in the highest levels of gridiron football has largely been limited to placekickers, and more recently to punters fromAustralia as well. Occasionally, these players come from outside the traditional Americanhigh school orcollege football systems—and most of thewomen to have played men's American football at the college level were placekickers. NotablyTom Landry recruited several soccer players from Latin America, such asEfren Herrera andRaphael Septien, to compete for the job of placekicker for theDallas Cowboys. CypriotGaro Yepremian was renowned as much for his kicking proficiency as he was for his complete lack of awareness of the sport early in his career. British-born kickerMick Luckhurst was one of the first British players in the NFL to have a long career, playing 7 seasons for theAtlanta Falcons during the 1980s and retiring as Atlanta's all-time leading scorer. Mexican kickerRaul Allegre played 9 seasons in the NFL and won a Super Bowl in 1986. Austrian kickerToni Fritsch played 12 seasons in the NFL and won a Super Bowl in 1972, becoming the only player in NFL history to have won a Super Bowl along with a top-flight association football title. These anecdotes increase the perception of the placekicker as an outsider.
As of 2017, only four kickers have been elected to thePro Football Hall of Fame:George Blanda,Lou Groza,Jan Stenerud andMorten Andersen, and among them, Stenerud and Andersen are the only ones who did not also play another position. There is only one special teams player (including punters,return specialists andlong snappers) to ever win the NFL's MVP –Mark Moseley in 1982.
Nevertheless, due to their duties in kicking both field goals and extra points placekickers are usually responsible for scoring more points than any other player on a team, and very often entire football games may come down to a single kick.[6] The top 40 players in NFL history in career scoring are all placekickers, with receiverJerry Rice at number 41.[7]
In the NFL, placekickers, along with punters and quarterbacks, used to be among the only players allowed to wear single-digituniform numbers; kickers can also wear numbers between 10 and 19.
In college and high school football, kickers can wear any number and usually wear one of aneligible receiver (1 to 49 or 80 to 99). Because kickers are generally less prominent on team rosters, and low uniform numbers are much more widely used among other positions at those levels, kickers are often given high jersey numbers that go unused by other players (such as numbers in the 40s or 90s). The two players in documented football history to have worn the uniform number 100, Chuck Kinder andBill Bell, were both placekickers.
Despite a higher share of kickers in the NFL being foreign nationals than on any other position (except punter), the kicking game is not always the strong suit of teams outside North America. TheNFL Europe was notable for employing former professionalassociation football players as placekickers, some of them becoming fan favorites, likeManni Burgsmüller. TheEuropean League of Football in its inaugural2021 season had a relatively high share ofPoint after Touchdown attempts miss or be blocked and had a notably higher share ofTwo Point Conversion attempts even than the contemporary2021 German Football League. TheCologne Centurions (ELF) and theLeipzig Kings even had all their Field Goal attempts that season fail (0-1 and 0-3 respectively in a ten-game season). TheBarcelona Dragons (ELF) hired NFL alumnusGiorgio Tavecchio late in the season to improve their kicking game while theHamburg Sea Devils (ELF) got lucky with journeyman placekickerde:Phillip Friis Andersen making 17 out of 18 attempts during the regular season, including a game winning one in the league opener againstFrankfurt Galaxy (ELF).
Placekickers today are predominantly "soccer-style" kickers, approaching the ball from several steps to the left of it [for a right-footed kicker, or vice versa] and several steps behind, striking the ball with the instep of the foot; all current National Football League kickers use this style. This method of kicking was introduced in 1957 byFred Bednarski[8][9] and popularized in the 1960s by kickers likePete Gogolak and his younger brotherCharlie, the first placekicker to be drafted in the first round.[10]
Previously, most placekickers used a "straight on" style, which required the use of a special shoe that is extremely rigid and has a flattened and slightly upturned toe.[11] In the straight on style, also known as "straight-toe" style, the kicker approaches the ball from directly behind, rather than from the side, and strikes the ball with the toe.
The last full-time straight on placekicker in the NFL wasMark Moseley who retired from theCleveland Browns after the 1986 season, and the last straight-on kicker drafted into the NFL wasManny Matsakis from Capital University by thePhiladelphia Eagles in 1984, who went on to have a successful college and coaching career. TheMinnesota Vikings were the last NFL team to begin employing a soccer-style kicker, bringing inBenny Ricardo in1983.
Straight on kickers are relatively uncommon in major college football due to the control and power disadvantages, but straight-on kickers are still seen on high school, small-college, semi-pro and amateur teams. Both of the top awards for kickers in college football are named after former straight-on kickersFred Mitchell andLou Groza but are now won by soccer-style players.
There are variations between soccer-style kicking: many of the early soccer-style NFL kickers had an action somewhat different from today's soccer-style kickers. There are also differences between college / preps[clarification needed] vs most of the preps taught between kicking schools. Kicking Coach Paul Assad started teaching in the early 2000s what is termed "The Power X System" method used by most all of his over 51 NFL starting specialist students such as noteworthy, NFL greats like (Mason Crosby,Sebastian Janikowski,Matt Bryant among others) where there is a notable, differentials of leg alignment, foot position at impact, upper body positioning and sequence as well as "Plant Foot" positioning.
Placekickers in the modern game usually wear specialized shoes (soccer cleats). The reason for this is that, as compared to regular football cleats which use tougher and stiffer plastic, soccer cleats are primarily made out of leather. Kickers will also, in certain situations, wear two different cleats. One is their kicking cleat and the other is referred to as their plant foot. The reason that kickers will wear a football cleat on their plant foot as opposed to a soccer cleat is because the stiffer material will help the plant foot have a firm grip in the ground and hold the kicker's ankle in a tight position.[12] In very rare circumstances, though, some prefer to kickbarefoot.Tony Franklin was one such barefoot kicker, who played inSuper Bowls for thePhiladelphia Eagles andNew England Patriots. Another wasRich Karlis, who once shared two kicking records - the record for longest field goal in Super Bowl history, kicking a 48-yard field goal inSuper Bowl XXI to tie Jan Stenerud and also for the most field goals in a game, seven for Minnesota in 1989, tyingJim Bakken's record of the time, a record since broken byRob Bironas.[13][14][15]EnglishmanRob Hart kicked barefoot during his 7-yearNFL Europe career. John Baker also used the style in the 1990s in theCanadian Football League, as didJosé Cortéz in theXFL. The last person to kick barefoot in an NFL game wasJeff Wilkins in 2002.
A unique shoe was worn byNew Orleans Saints kickerTom Dempsey; Dempsey had a deformed kicking foot that left him with a flat kicking surface at the front of his foot, and he wore a shoe that accommodated it. After Dempsey kicked a record-setting 63-yard field goal using the special shoe in 1970, the league instituted arule change establishing standards for kicking shoes in 1977, informally known as the "Tom Dempsey Rule", that "any shoe that is worn by a player with an artificial limb on his kicking leg must have a kicking surface that conforms to that of a normal kicking shoe."[16][17] Dempsey played for two more years after the rule's institution, retiring in 1979.
Barefoot kickers are banned in the vast majority of high school games, due to a rule by theNational Federation of State High School Associations, which requires all players to wear shoes.Texas plays byNCAA rules,[18] and therefore barefoot kickers are legal in Texas.[citation needed]
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