A topic frequently brought up when talking about the European League of Football is the kicking game that is often heavily criticized. But is the kicking game really as bad as some people believe, or are kickers just frequently getting scapegoated? Let’s take a deep dive into the numbers.

During the first six weeks of the season, a total of 107 field goal attempts with an average distance of 35.37 yards where attempted, of which 78 were successful. Of the 29 missed kicks, six where blocked. This leads us to a field goal success rate of 72,9%. 

Comparison with other pro-football leagues

For comparison, during the 2021 season, the average Division I FBS field goal was attempted from 36.1 yards with a success rate of 75.2%. The same year, the average NFL field goal was kicked from a distance of 38.6 yards and was good on 85.1% of attempts. 

Collegiate kickers have shown noticeable improvements over the past few years, though. Just six years ago, FBS kickers were on par with the best in Europe, succeeding on 73.0% of their tries from an average distance of 35.3 yards during the 2017 season. But even with college kickers improving, the kickers in the European League of Football are not far off. 

With that out of the way let’s take a deeper look at field goals in this league. The graphic shows every blocked, made and missed field goal of the first six weeks of the 2023 season.

Provided by Nils Rosjat

Average length of the kick in relation to success rate

The red dot shows the average length of the kick. The average blocked field goal was attempted from 40.0 yards, the average made field goal from 34.04 yards and the average missed from 39.87. The grey line is the median, which is the middle value in a set of numbers when they are arranged in order, which represents the value that divides the data into two equal halves of lower values and higher values. In simpler terms, 50% of field goal attempts are taken in front of the grey line and 50% are taken behind it. When taking a look at the missed field goals, you can see that most kicks are missed between the 39–48-yard line. This is represented by the outline getting wider. 

Not all kickers are equally good as their competition. In the following graph, you can see every field goal attempt by every kicker over the course of the first six weeks of the season.

Provided by Nils Rosjat

100 Percent success rate

There are six kickers that have not missed a field goal so far this season: Péter Szőke, Marek Hruboň, Marcel Ulrbich, Dennis Tasic, Emanuel Trinkl and Sebastian Summerer. Take this with a grain of salt though since none of them has attempted more than three kicks. If we are only taking kickers into account that attempted at least five FGs, there are only six with above average accuracy. Eric Schlomm (90.0%), Jakub Ałdaś (87.5%), Niklas Sanin (87.5%), Matteo Felli (83.33%), Nils Jonkmans (77.78%) and Ryan Rimmler (75.0%). 

There are two kickers that did not succeed on any field goal attempt: Nick Köhler (1 attempt) and Benjamin Bono (2 attempts). The longest successful field goal was kicked by Sebastian van Santen, who hit a 59-yard-attempt, which is tied for the longest successful field goal in European League of Football history. 

But there is one thing at which kickers are really struggling this year: Point after touchdowns. Out of 272 attempted PATs only 193 were successful. That’s just a mere 71,0%. Division I football cannot be used as a comparison here since the ball is snapped from the 2-yard line in college, while in the European League of Football and NFL the snap is from the 15-yard line. The success rate of a PAT in the NFL was at 93.4% in 2021. 

Mental factor involved in PATs

Snapping the ball from the 15 makes for a 32-yard field goal. Not too complicated when you consider that the average field goal is good from a distance of 34.04 yards right? Well, yes and no. While the numbers suggest that this is just an average field goal, there is a big mental factor involved in PATs. Talking to a few kickers, many stated that while the length of the kick is almost double compared to the domestics leagues and college football, expectations from the fans, coaches and their selves stay the same. The PAT is often considered as a gimme, while expectations for a field goal from the same distance are lower. This leads to higher pressure on extra points compared to FG attempts. 

Kickers that are completely new to playing football tend to struggle less with the increased extra point distance than those who already kicked in the domestic leagues. While Jakub Ałdaś (91.3%) and Sebastian van Santen (74.29%) score above average on PAT attempts, Robert Werner and Lenny Krieg are struggling so far, despite great performances in the GFL last year. Krieg’s success rate dropped from 87.5% last year to 61.54%, while Werner’s rate dropped from an almost perfect 97.4% to just 61.11% this season. 

Despite all of this, we should not forget that the season has only been going for six weeks. Kicking improves with time and practice and the numbers from the 2014-2021 college football seasons show that the kicking percentage usually rises later in the season. So, does the European League of Football have a kicking problem? Yes and no. While extra points certainly need to improve a lot, the field goal statistics are on a similar level to the highest level of college football, which is definitely a good sign.