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+---- Thread: *An investigation: What is the best season by a rookie kicker? (/showthread.php?tid=49659)
*An investigation: What is the best season by a rookie kicker? - DoubleDub - 02-09-2024
I've been getting more and more involved in the ISFL since I joined the league. I didn't think it would be anything more than a secondary league I gave a cursory glance at but I've really grown to love the league and the NOLA LR. Therefore I wanted to dig deeper into the league but wasn't sure what to write about.
In the end i decided to write about which kicker had the best rookie season, in part thanks to the early success of our rookie kicker Jack Sloth.
I have gone through the ISFL index and collated the rookie seasons of each kicker that has graced our humble league. I will present the results and pick a top 10 and an all time winner. I have also collected the streaks that they started their season without a miss. Both extra points made without a miss and field goals without a miss.
To date there has been 95 kickers in the history of the ISFL which feels low but I've double checked and it looks right.
I think there would be two ways to do this, we could look at the number of points scored in their rookie seasons or we could look at extra point and field goal percentages during their rookie seasons. However, both approaches have their pro's and con's.
If we purely judge the kicker on the number of points they scored then we are either promoting or penalising them dependent on the performance of their team. Let's take the Season 22 Chicago Butchers for example. They scored only 9 touchdowns over the whole of the season (5 passing TD's, 3 rushing TD's and one defensive TD). Why should we punish their kicker (Sam Sidekick) for only having 9 opportunities to knock through an easy point.
Another Season 22 kicker that would be punished is Matthew McDairmid of the San Jose Sabercats. McDairmid was the first kicker to ever have a perfect field goal percentage in their rookie season (that played the majority of their teams games). However, he only kicked 14 field goals on a San Jose team that made its living on defense.
On the flipside you can also argue that McDairmid would be unfairly favoured by a criteria that was based exclusively on field goal percentage. Is his 14/14 season better than say Jake Fencik's 31/33 season in Season 25 for the Philadelphia Liberty. Fencik wasn't perfect but he posted a field goal percentage of nearly 94% whilst attempting more than double the amount of field goals than McDairmid.
Now I want to say that I have disregarded distances in this exercise which I'm starting to second guess. I would like to have weighted the misses of the kickers, to me a short field goal missed is far more egregious than a long field goal missed. But then I would end up looking into who was good in the clutch and that just sounds like a whole other article for me to do when I get bored again.
Therefore I'm going to cast a net over the kickers that have scored the most points. I think that brings more weight to their performance than just accuracy. In the second half of this I will start to weed out the better percentages of the group that is left.
Therefore I am going to take the top 15 in total points which is conveniently the rookie kickers who scored 130 or more points in their first season. I have listed these out at the bottom of the article with their stats if you are so intrigued.
One observation of these top 15 is that they are all from Season 25 and onwards. I don't know enough about the league to pinpoint any happenings at that point but my working theory is that an increased user base would mean that kickers could stay in the DSFL for longer. Therefore, when first kicking in the ISFL the kickers would have had more TPE then their colleagues from previous seasons.
Ok let's get into the nitty gritty of the exercise, the top 15 is separated by 23 points. At 15th is the preciously mentioned Jake Fencik (130 points) and at 1st is Ikick Ballz (153 points). To start with I'm going to eliminate any kicker who didn't hit on >98% of their extra points. This is their core responsibility so for me, if you can't hit that then you're cut.
That sees our list cut to 11 as we bid farewell to Ray Baker, Psuedo QB, Mike Makmur and Wing Wang. Let's move over to the field goal percentage, for our first cut im going to say anything less than 85% is a cut. That sees another four make away as we lose Swantavious King, David Doug, Freddy Bly and Izuku Campbell.
So 7 remain, now that we are in our last round of cuts I am going to put the squeeze on. Only one kicker remains who missed a single extra point during their rookie season - for that we say bye bye to Cade York. 6 remain. Now this is where things will get interesting (to me at least) the top three points scorers in their rookie seasons were Ballz, Lux Opal and Levy Tate. However, they all kicked less than 89% of their field goals. We are looking for the elite kicker here 89% isn't elite to me, therefore we move on from them.
This leaves three kickers to pick from, I've listed them put below.
Jeremy Crouse Jr - S38 - OCO - 45/45 XP - 30/33 FG - 56 yard long - 135 points scored
Taipan Pete - S29 - NOLA - 44/44 XP - 30/33 FG - 57 yard long - 134 points scored
Jake Fencik - S25 - PHI - 37/37 XP - 31/33 FG - 47 yard long - 130 points scored
To start with I'm going to rule out Fencik, only one extra field goal made and a longest make of nearly 10 yards closer then the other two. Plus the other two made a handful of more extra points, for that we give Jake Fencik a bronze medal.
Now we are down to two, I've decided to dig deeper and take a look at the two kickers misses.
Starting with Taipan Pete, he had misses of 50, 51 and 40.
Crouse Jr had misses of 46, 43 and 37.
With all three of Crouse Jr's misses coming from within 50 yards - I have no choice but to give the crown to Taipan Pete. To only add to his resumè, Pete played 15 games that season - if he played Week 1 then he would have had three field goal attempts within 40 yards. A fair chance that he would have won this silly competition without the need for a count back.
The article doesn't end here (sorry) but I also managed to work out which kickers starting their careers with the most consecutive makes.
The top 5 list of consecutive extra points made to start a career
Savathun T Withqueen - S37 - AZ - 229 makes
Jayme Jayne Jay-Jaymison - S41 - AZ - 181 makes
Lux Opal - S29 - COL - 159 makes
Ikick Ballz - S32 - PHI - 135 makes
Leo Bloomfield - S27 - AUS - 121 makes
Prior to Season 41, Witchqueen would be traded to Colorado where they would swap to DT. Leaving the streak to still be active - if ever the Defensive Tackle (still active in the league today) decides to swing the boot one more time.
Another thing to note is that Arizona made 410 consecutive extra points between Witchqueen and Jay-Jaymison. Therefore from Season 37 to Season 44, Arizona only missed one extra point. That figure stays the same if you toss Season 45 into the mix as Jay-Jaymison was perfect in that season as well.
Now for the top 5 in consecutive field goals without a miss to start a career
Matthew McDairmid - S22 - SJS - 37 makes
Double Doink - S35 - YKW - 35 makes
Wayne Gooney - S4 - LVL - 18 makes
Datsum PhastBowl - S24 - BAL - 18 makes
Kicky Bobby - S17 - YKW - 15 makes
Peg Leg - S5 - COL - 15 makes
Double Doink actually missed their first extra point but made their first 35 field goals.
A quick hall of shame shout out - Mike Makmur was the only kicker to miss their first Field Goal Attempt and their first Extra Point Attempt.
I haven't included any mention of the current streaks that are happening because I don't want to be accused of any jinxing.
I've included some other rookie kicking records at the bottom.
I hope you have enjoyed this read because I honestly have enjoyed writing this, hopefully there is some alright feedback about it and I can update this every season or so.
Top 15 points scored in rookie season
Ikick Ballz - S32 - PHI - 153 Points
Lux Opal - S29 - COL - 152 Points
Levy Tate - S33 - CHI - 150 Points
Cade York - S29 - AZ - 149 Points
Swantavious King - S35 - SAR - 148 Points
Ray Baker - S41 - HON - 144 Points
Psuedo QB - S25 - AUS - 137 Points
David Doug - S39 - CHI - 137 Points
Mike Makmur - S38 - BAL - 136 Points
Wing Wang - S42 - NYS - 136 Points
Jeremy Crouse Jr - S38 - OCO - 135 Points
Taipan Pete - S29 - NOLA - 134 Points
Freddy Bly - S31 - HON - 133 Points
Izuku Campbell - S32 - BER - 131 Points
Jake Fencik - S25 - PHI - 130 Points
Top 3 Longest Field Goals made by a rookie
Swantavious King - S35 - PHI - 61 Yards
Zenzeroni Xystarch II - S44 - YKW - 60 Yards
Ikick Ballz - S32 - PHI - 59 Yards
A gang of 7 are at 57 Yards.
RE: An investigation: What is the best season by a rookie kicker? - lock180 - 02-09-2024
Well I didn't think I was going to wake up to this slander but I guess here we are. @DoubleDub you better get ready to learn Italian buddy because Zenzeroni Xystarch II is coming for you later tonight. You messed with the wrong kicker
very well put together article though!