Factors Affecting Football Freakonomics

On January 19, 2002, Adam Vinatieri, New England Patriots kicker, went out on the field for a field goal attempt that no fan would have considered possible for him to make. It was a windy, and snowy playoff game, and the Patriots were down by 3 points to the Oakland Raiders with 27 seconds left in the game. The fans were very nervous, wondering how the weather conditions would affect Vinatieri. Perhaps they worried about the distance, wishing that the offence would have gotten further down the field, giving Vinatieri a shorter kick. Would getting a shorter kick really have a made a big difference? Field goals are an important part of the game of Football. Within every game at least four field goals are attempted per game; with the outcome of the game being determined on how they turn out. Based on the conditions of the game the coach must decide if their kicker will be able to make the field goal …show more content…
Lastly, in FootballOutsiders.com field goal difficulty was determined on altitude (Denver vs. non-Denver), the temperature, and if the game was indoors or out. While almost all analyses looked at these environmental factors, Football Freakonomics looked at one distinct situational and mental factor – “icing the kicker.” “Icing the kicker is when the coach from the other team calls a timeout right before the kicker is about to go out on the field to kick the field goal attempting to make the kicker overthink the kick and end up missing the field goal. This analysis mostly relies on unreliable evidence and personal opinions. Some data shows that icing the kicker does the opposite of what they would like it to do. Most of the kickers who get “iced” have a higher percentage of made field goals than those who do not get “iced”. A lot like the completion percentage, not every attempt is as hard as others. Since there are a lot more factors taken into consideration when deciding whether or not a pass is