COCKUP: HOW TO RATE KICKERS

A few years ago, I was looking for an efficient way of measuring place-kickers, and came up with a formula. Last year, when I wrote a piece evaluating the 2008 NFL kicking season, I named it: Carlson's Original Calibration for Kickers, Un-scientific Program, or COCKUP. Then I refined it, by measuring Cockup per kicking attempt, which became COCKUPPA. Unscientific as it is, it actually works pretty well, and basically threw up Jason Hanson as the NFL's most valuable kicker last year, with Rob Bironas the best in the AFC. Hanson actually registered by far the highest Cockuppa score of anyone since I started this. Of course you have to tweak it, and consider ability on kickoffs, as well as the dreaded 'clutch' situations, but I'm pretty satisfied with it. You can find the CHFF piece here.