05-20-2024, 09:46 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-22-2024, 10:00 PM by wetwilleh. Edited 1 time in total.)
It’s 45-17 why the hell were they even playing anymore? The rookie Jack Lewis thinks to himself. His team, the San Jose Sabercats, were already losing terribly and he was getting dragged onto the field for a field goal. A field goal that had never been missed by ANYONE in the league’s 34 year history.
9 seasons later a kicker that would retire at the end of the season makes his way onto the field. He was one of the franchise's most storied kickers playing–
huh, would you look at that,
playing 9 full seasons before hanging it up and being proud of what he achieved. But he would add one more accolade to his belt tonight. One that would put him in the record books for all to see.
2 seasons later the Austin Copperheads and Orange County Otters are playing a week 16 crucial game battling it out to decide seeding in the playoffs. It’s only the second quarter but it’s a big moment. The excited Charlie Brown is ready for his time to shine. He would not be humiliated again.
But he would be humiliated again. So would the two before him. None of these kicks would make an impact on the individual game they played in but they would show up in bolded numbers in the stats books and haunt these players for the rest of their lives.
This, is the story of the easiest kick in ISFL history.
There have been thousands upon thousands of field goal kicks every year but I want to focus in on one specific type of field goal. A kick that is even easier to make than an extra point. However, despite the ease of which it is to make these kicks it is by far the rarest kick to actually perform. In fact, before our fierce Sabercat stepped onto the field for his kick, only 493 kicks of this kind had been performed in the 34 seasons the league had been around up to that point. That may seem like a lot but in just the first 3 seasons 614 extra points were made. Maybe a better comparison to these field goals are 50+ field goals made in those 34 seasons. In that case, 520 field goals were made. However, as mentioned earlier, the field goals I’m talking about are much easier to make than 50+ yard field goals where kickers were kicking at a 59.61% clip. It’s basically a coin flip as to whether you are going to make a 50+ yard field goal or not. But the kick that has been attempted 493 times in 34 seasons has NEVER been missed giving it a greater percentage than an extra point which sits at around 96%.
The kick we are talking about today is the less than 20 yard field goal. So why is it so rare? It all has to do with positioning. Say you are kicking an extra point. Nowadays in the NFL, the ball is placed on the 15 yard line. Intuitively you’d think it to be a 15 yard field goal. But then you have to remember that the goalposts are at the BACK of the endzone and with the endzone being another 10 yards that makes your 15 yard attempt a 25 yard attempt. But the long snapper also has to snap the ball far enough back so that the kick will clear the offense and defensive lines so you need to tack on another 8 yards for that. So in the end whatever yard line you are on it is normal to tack on another 18 or so yards.
That makes a <20 yard field goal nearly impossible. To do so would require a team to be practically on the goal line or 1 yard line and at that point most teams would just go for it. But for those 493 times teams didn’t go for it they knew the kick was practically impossible to miss. Even if you severely shank it there isn’t enough time for the ball to miss the uprights. And so that was the case for 493 attempts until Jack Lewis of the San Jose Sabercats walked onto the field and missed an 18 yard field goal. 2 years and another 192 makes later Double Doink decides to live up to his name and miss and doink an 18 yard field goal of his own. Finally, after 60 more makes Charlie Brown gets the football taken out from under him as he misses a 19 yard field goal in the final game of the regular season.
An extra point has around a 96% chance of going in
A 50 yard field goal has around 60%
But inside 20 yards, 748 kicks have been attempted and 745 of them have been made. That means there is a 99.6% chance that your kicker will make that field goal but for the three that didn’t it may just haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Jack Lewis
Double Doink
Charlie Brown
9 seasons later a kicker that would retire at the end of the season makes his way onto the field. He was one of the franchise's most storied kickers playing–
huh, would you look at that,
playing 9 full seasons before hanging it up and being proud of what he achieved. But he would add one more accolade to his belt tonight. One that would put him in the record books for all to see.
2 seasons later the Austin Copperheads and Orange County Otters are playing a week 16 crucial game battling it out to decide seeding in the playoffs. It’s only the second quarter but it’s a big moment. The excited Charlie Brown is ready for his time to shine. He would not be humiliated again.
But he would be humiliated again. So would the two before him. None of these kicks would make an impact on the individual game they played in but they would show up in bolded numbers in the stats books and haunt these players for the rest of their lives.
This, is the story of the easiest kick in ISFL history.
There have been thousands upon thousands of field goal kicks every year but I want to focus in on one specific type of field goal. A kick that is even easier to make than an extra point. However, despite the ease of which it is to make these kicks it is by far the rarest kick to actually perform. In fact, before our fierce Sabercat stepped onto the field for his kick, only 493 kicks of this kind had been performed in the 34 seasons the league had been around up to that point. That may seem like a lot but in just the first 3 seasons 614 extra points were made. Maybe a better comparison to these field goals are 50+ field goals made in those 34 seasons. In that case, 520 field goals were made. However, as mentioned earlier, the field goals I’m talking about are much easier to make than 50+ yard field goals where kickers were kicking at a 59.61% clip. It’s basically a coin flip as to whether you are going to make a 50+ yard field goal or not. But the kick that has been attempted 493 times in 34 seasons has NEVER been missed giving it a greater percentage than an extra point which sits at around 96%.
The kick we are talking about today is the less than 20 yard field goal. So why is it so rare? It all has to do with positioning. Say you are kicking an extra point. Nowadays in the NFL, the ball is placed on the 15 yard line. Intuitively you’d think it to be a 15 yard field goal. But then you have to remember that the goalposts are at the BACK of the endzone and with the endzone being another 10 yards that makes your 15 yard attempt a 25 yard attempt. But the long snapper also has to snap the ball far enough back so that the kick will clear the offense and defensive lines so you need to tack on another 8 yards for that. So in the end whatever yard line you are on it is normal to tack on another 18 or so yards.
That makes a <20 yard field goal nearly impossible. To do so would require a team to be practically on the goal line or 1 yard line and at that point most teams would just go for it. But for those 493 times teams didn’t go for it they knew the kick was practically impossible to miss. Even if you severely shank it there isn’t enough time for the ball to miss the uprights. And so that was the case for 493 attempts until Jack Lewis of the San Jose Sabercats walked onto the field and missed an 18 yard field goal. 2 years and another 192 makes later Double Doink decides to live up to his name and miss and doink an 18 yard field goal of his own. Finally, after 60 more makes Charlie Brown gets the football taken out from under him as he misses a 19 yard field goal in the final game of the regular season.
An extra point has around a 96% chance of going in
A 50 yard field goal has around 60%
But inside 20 yards, 748 kicks have been attempted and 745 of them have been made. That means there is a 99.6% chance that your kicker will make that field goal but for the three that didn’t it may just haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Jack Lewis
Double Doink
Charlie Brown
Howdy! I am responsible for quite possibly the greatest kicker to ever grace the ISFL and am the most accomplished media writer the ISFL has ever seen (no need to ask anyone else regarding either of those claims)
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