An excerpt:
quote:... since Crosby entered the NFL in 2007, he has attempted more 50-plus yard field goals than every place-kicker except the Oakland Raiders' Sebastian Janikowski. He has missed 19 of those 33 attempts, accounting for nearly half of the total misses in his career.
The second chart, courtesy the MIT paper, is a ranking of the most difficult stadiums to kick in since the start of the 2000 season... 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.
Shouldn't preclude bringing in some competition during camp this season, but provides some useful perspective.
