The worst job security in the NFL
The ups and downs of an NFL kicker through the eyes of Robbie Gould and others
Imagine sitting in your cubicle at work with your boss analyzing every movement of the mouse. Send an email with a typo, strike one. Accidentally offend a co-worker with an off-colored joke, strike two. Lose the sale after two months of pursing a new client, strike three. Fired. However, you don’t get to quietly leave the premises, never to show your face there again. Instead, your boss sets up an all-hands meeting to let everyone know your services are no longer needed.
Such is the brutal career of an NFL kicker. Do your job and you can stay employed with very little praise. Make a mistake and you could be on the next plane back to your parent’s basement. If you don’t do your job well as a kicker, you don’t get benched like other positions, you just get cut from the team.
It is easy to be a fan on the couch and think how nice it would be to be an NFL kicker. Getting paid high six or seven figures to trot out on the field and kick a ball a few times a game doesn’t sound like a bad gig. Though kickers are making more than 99% of Americans, they are faced with the stress of being fired at any given moment. Jay Feely, a former NFL kicker said, “Everyday you go to practice, you know your job is on the line.”
One in a million
Robbie Gould wanted to be a professional soccer player when in high school. When he found out that wasn’t going to be an option, he decided to give football a try. His freshman year in college he was able to walk on to Penn State as a kicker. He wasn’t particularly outstanding in college, but he wanted to go to the NFL. He went undrafted in the 2005 draft. Prior to the 2005 season he signed with two teams as a free agent, but was cut by both before the start of the season. He then went and got a construction job.
Looking at the number of job openings, securing a kicking role in the NFL is the hardest position to obtain. Most teams only carry one kicker on the roster, leaving just 32 jobs a year. NFL teams also have practice squads, which consist of 16 players, but teams don’t use those spots on kickers because they aren’t viewed as important compared to other positions.
The average kicker lasts 4.87 years in the NFL, which means many teams aren’t in the market for a new kicker. In the last three NFL drafts, there have only been three kickers taken. Oftentimes, teams won’t use draft picks on kickers and instead will elect to hold tryouts.
Garrett Hartley was a kicker and played in the NFL six seasons for the New Orleans Saints and Cleveland Browns, winning one Super Bowl. In a December 2013 game against the St. Louis Rams he missed two field goals. He was released two days later and the Saints found their replacement that same day.
After being released he waited for his agent to call with news of another team willing to take a shot on him. He had to wait another year before getting his chance when the Browns kicker missed a field goal in five straight games. They gave Hartley a call and brought him in for a group tryout competing with a few other kickers.
Hartley recalls the tryout writing, “Each of us got 10 kicks. That’s it. All that work, all that waiting, all that uncertainty and you get 10 chances to prove you can be the guy. You’re probably thinking, That doesn’t sound like a lot of kicks … but that’s a standard kicking tryout.”
Economics of a kicker
Three weeks into the 2005 NFL season, Robbie Gould signed with the Chicago Bears after their kicker was injured. The next year he was named to the All-Pro team and Pro Bowl. He has played 18 years in the NFL and has made just short of $48 million.
The average NFL kicker makes an annual salary of $2.5 million. Right now, the best paid kicker in the league is Matt Gay of the Indianapolis Colts who makes just over $9 million a year, though his salary decreases dramatically after this year due to the structure of his contract. Justin Tucker, who is widely known as the best kicker in the NFL, will make between $7.3 and $8.3 million depending on incentives.
Less proven kickers will make far less. Many will be on the league minimum salary, which is currently $750k. The NFL is notorious for contracts with a large chunk of un-guaranteed money, which means if a kicker gets cut from the team, a large portion of their salary will go unpaid.
A kickers value
Despite being paid lower than most players in the NFL, kickers contribute the most points scored by a single position. On average, a kicker scores about seven point per game. Of course, they are only put in a position to score because of their teammates, but when given the chance they can have a huge influence on a football game.
Throughout his career, Robbie Gould has scored 1,961 points, has made 447 field goals, and has never missed a field goal in the postseason. He said his goal is to score 2,000 points and possibly make 500 field goals. After a successful 18 years in the league, Gould became a free agent at the end of last season. He shared he wouldn’t be resigning with the 49ers (who decided to go with younger and less expensive talent) and would be testing the free agency waters. When asked about his priorities he said, "I'd love to win if possible, so I'm kind of being a little picky with that, but at 40 years old and playing 18 years in the league, I think I've earned the ability to do that."
Despite all the success Gould has had, no team signed him in free agency. Why are kickers often treated as expendable compared to other positions? It’s likely is a bit of a supply and demand issue.
There are lots of quality kickers who never get the chance at the professional level because there are only 32 roster spots available. They are all ready and waiting for a call from a team to prove they belong. Last year, almost half of the teams in the NFL replaced their kicker at least once.
Buddy Ryan was a long-time coach in the NFL and once said, “Kickers are like taxicabs. You can always go out and hire another one.” Ryan had a point. Kickers don’t need to learn the plays, study the defense, or have out-of-this-world athletic abilities. They only have one thing they need to do and it’s something that most kickers can do — some just do it better than others. The difference in the talent and impact gap between the best and worst kicker in the NFL is a lot smaller than the talent and impact gap between the best and worst quarterback in the NFL.
Though Robbie Gould is waiting for a call from an NFL team, he probably doesn’t feel as replaceable as teams may think. Still, it only matters how a team perceives him. After 18 years in the league, his run might be coming to an end. Until then, he’s ready for the phone to ring with the right opportunity.
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