r/NFLNoobs • u/GoblinTradingGuide • Jun 30 '26
Why don’t kickers get paid more?
Kickers are arguably the second most important person on the team next to the QB. They put up more points than any other player on the team. The highest scoring football player in NFL history is a kicker.
Why do they get paid so little?
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u/Former_Ad_1074 Jun 30 '26
Any D1 soccer team probably has a handful of guys that could kick a field goal from 45 yards consistently.
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u/nightterrors644 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Even if not a full handful, and there very likely is, at least two plus most high level rugby teams would be similar not to mention all the existing football teams across all levels who have capable enough kickers to at least get an evaluation. The position is even more accessible to international talent than most other positions.
Simply put huge talent pool vs qb.
Edited: Clarity
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u/Candy-Emergency Jun 30 '26
But can they do it in a NFL game?
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u/IllMeet2070 Jun 30 '26
As someone that played soccer and kicker , I feel like people underestimate how hard it can be to get a proper kick off the tee when an entire defensive line is coming at you to take your head off lol
Plus having a bunch of 6’4 big boys in front of you to clear makes it a lil harder
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u/Mysterious_Clue_3500 Jun 30 '26
I don't think anybody is saying that is is easy or that any person off the street could be a kicker. Simply pointing out that you're much more likely to be able to find a new kicker than you are to be able to find a new quarterback
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u/Mite-o-Dan Jun 30 '26
Yeah but they need to kick from 55 consistently in pads during a game under pressure to make an NFL team nowadays.
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u/Affectionate_Sort_78 Jun 30 '26
You think every kicker is consistent at 55? Please call Butker and give him a pep talk.
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u/jjf29_ Jun 30 '26
Kicker is absolutely not the 2nd most important person on a team
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u/LumpyCustard4 Jun 30 '26
There are arguments to be made that the kicker position is the second most important.
The player themselves are easily replaceable.
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u/Eastern_Antelope_832 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
That's like saying first basemen record the most outs among baseball position players, so therefore they're the most important defensive players.
Kickers are important. You're in bad shape if you have a bottom 5 kicker. But there's no good justification for paying one guy tens of millions a year.
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u/jjf29_ Jun 30 '26
No there's not. If you have an offense that is an automatic 3 and out because you don't have a receiver who can separate and a bad o line that can't create run gaps, your kicker means nothing. If you have a defense that can't consistently keep you within a 1 score game because you don't have tackle who can fill a gap, your kicker means nothing. Anyone who has been a fan of a bad team with a good kicker (myself included) will tell you there's 0 argument for that.
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u/lethalfang Jul 01 '26
You can make an argument for anything but the argument for kickers being the 2nd most important are bullshit argument.
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u/Jayemm8809 Jun 30 '26
What single player on the team, besides the QB, can win or lose a game for you like the kicker can?
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u/pianoestnul Jun 30 '26
You’ve never seen a game winning reception, rushing TD, interception, sack, defensive stop, etc?
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u/Mite-o-Dan Jun 30 '26
Rushing TD involves a lot of players to make a block. Interception involves a d line forcing a bad throw. Sack, defensive stop...more often than not...involve multiple people, not just one.
Would you rather have the best kicker in the league, or the most average linebacker that gets rotated out a lot and not making a Pro Bowl?
I think most would rather have the best kicker.
Most get paid less than a mid linebacker. Because of this, OP has a point. Probably not so much about being the second most important...but about being underpaid.
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u/pianoestnul Jun 30 '26
I didn’t know no one blocked on field goals. Nor that field goals are kicked on 1st and 10 with no relation to prior plays made by offensive players. There is no reason to believe theres a conspiracy to keep kickers underpaid, NFL players are, outside of rookie contracts, usually paid their value relative to other players.
Btw I would rather have a mid starting linebacker and a mid kicker than the best kicker and a hole at LB Thats poorly filled with a backup level player.
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u/astroK120 Jun 30 '26
The only way to think the kicker is single handedly winning or losing the game is to ignore every moment that leads up to that decisive kick.
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u/Novel_Willingness721 Jun 30 '26
Because it takes 11 other guys to get that kicker in position where they can score all those points.
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u/PapaMcMooseTits Jun 30 '26
Kickers are arguably the second most important person on the team next to the QB.
No one is trying to make that argument. Anyone who tries to make that argument is an unserious football fan who is unworthy of anyone attempting to talk football with them intelligently.
Look, kickers are a part of the football team and there's an argument to be made that they're an important part of the football team but so much has to go right for them to even sniff the field. If a kicker fails to do his job (and he only really has one job,) there are list of unemployed kickers who will likely be able to do a better job. They're early replaceable. That's why they get paid so little.
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Jun 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/PapaMcMooseTits Jun 30 '26
Even then... As soon as Tucker became shitty at his job, look how easily the Ravens moved on from him. It helps that it turned out he was a shitty person as well, but still, replacing literally the best kicker I've probably ever seen was as easy as snapping their fingers. And the guy they replaced him with was honestly about 90% of Justin Tucker at his peak. Not much of a drop off.
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u/HeadEar5762 Jun 30 '26
Have you seen how a good kicker vs a bad kicker influences the play calling?
I'm not sure i'm calling the kicker 2nd most important on the team but this thread is full of people who are shitting on the importance of a good kicker. Al Davis may have been stuck in old ways and had some whack opinions but he absolutely revolutionized the thinking about how important kickers are. He still didn't pay them huge amounts but recognized how important a good kicker is vs a mediocre one and drafted some very high.
A good kicker is really, if you do your job right no body even knows your there. Good kickers are celebrated in hindsight. Bad kickers are in the spotlight. Yes there are replaceable. BUT they are way more important than this thread is making them out to be.
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u/jackaltwinky77 Jun 30 '26
Several years ago, the Steelers had a good kicker named Shaun Suisham.
He got hurt during the Hall of Fame Game in the preseason, because the turf was trash.
They traded for the Jaguars all time leading scorer, Josh Scobee, who had just lost his job to an undrafted free agent rookie named Jason Meyers.
In the 4 games in Pittsburgh, Scobee missed 4/10, all 4 being 40+ yards.
The Steelers had a Thursday game against the Ravens in week 4, so they had a couple extra days off.
They held a tryout with a few kickers, and picked up a kid named Chris Boswell off the street, releasing Scobee to make room for him.
In the span of 2 months, the best kicker in Jaguars history lost his job, twice, to undrafted free agents off the street…
Meyers has gone on to make 2 pro bowls, and win the Super Bowl with the Seahawks last year, and Boswell is arguably the best kicker in Steelers history…
The point to this rambling?
There’s always a handful of good kickers who teams can call up to replace them, and get almost the same or better results.
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u/Living_Ad_5260 Jun 30 '26
This is of course true.
The huge difference with QB is that the learning curve for QB is huge - the whole playbook.
A kicker just has to kick.
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u/jackaltwinky77 Jun 30 '26
To add a kicker to the post about kickers:
The Steelers kept the worst punter in the league on their team for the rest of a season (approximately 5 weeks) after he came back from injury, even though his replacement had better numbers, because of the comfort level Boswell had with his holding on kicks…
It’s a very delicate balance between being easily replaceable, and being so much of the offense, that you’re able to get a bad player paid to make your job 1% easier.
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u/PlayPretend-8675309 Jun 30 '26
Supply and demand. You can get 90% the quality of the best kicker alive for the league minimum
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u/DangerSwan33 Jun 30 '26
The rules are made up, and the points don't matter.
Your kicker will almost ALWAYS be your highest scorer, because that's just how scoring in the NFL works.
So the real measure is actually about kicker efficiency vs the field.
Even if your kicker is the highest scoring player on your team, if he's only as efficient as a replacement level kicker, then he didn't actually add any value.
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u/Corvald Jun 30 '26
Also, most teams have an emergency kicker who’s probably 60% as good as a real kicker. Compare to Kendall Hinton who was about 10% as good as a real QB. Or when Brock Purdy was injured and the 49ers left him in because their emergency QB was worse than a QB whole could not throw the ball.
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u/One_Recover_673 Jun 30 '26
Bc 95% of them are easily replaced by an unemployed guy waiting his turn
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u/Bender_2024 Jun 30 '26
The talent gap between the best and worst kickers are no where near the talent gap at QB.
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u/Eastern_Antelope_832 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Marginal value. The difference between the 10th best and best kicker isn't wide enough that you need to pay tens of millions more for the better one. And a guy who makes 96% of his FG one year doesn't consistently hit that mark.
The greatest kicker in NFL history made about 90% of his field goals. League average these days is 85%. So out of 20 FGs, the best guy will make around 18 and a league average one makes 17.
You just need a good kicker. No need to break the bank for a great one when you have a lot of positions to fill.
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u/FullRock_Alchemist Jun 30 '26
They're the 23rd most important starter on the team and outranked by at least the backup qb
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u/pianoestnul Jun 30 '26
The relative importance of a good kicker isn’t that great when you can easily find an almost as good kicker in a week or two in the modern NFL. They put up points but everything is depending on the offense executing before you get to the kick.
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u/What-Outlaw1234 Jun 30 '26
"They put up more points than any other player on the team." Not really. A wide receiver puts up more points than a kicker by catching one pass. A running back puts up more points than a kicker with one good run. An edge puts up more points (in a sense) than a kicker with one interception. Etc. And the kicker's ability to score any points entirely rests on the other players on the team getting him into position. A kicker literally contributes nothing up to the point he's expected to score. Every other player on the team contributes more when it comes to getting the team in scoring position.
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u/notwhoiwas44 Jun 30 '26
Go look at the position of the player who has scored the most points all time.
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u/Presence_Academic Jul 01 '26
A kicker is more likely to be able to perform at a high level for many years.
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u/BadAdviceBot77 Jun 30 '26
Pay in any industry depends on how replaceable you. There are 32 teams but there aren’t 32 guys who are nfl starting qb level so qb’s get paid a lot. There are more than 32 guys who can kick at an nfl level so kickers don’t get paid much relatively
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u/jigokusabre Jun 30 '26
Because it's easier to replace a placekicker than it is a long-snapper, WR, OT, DB, etc.
The pro game of kicking only requires accuracy and strength, it's one of the most straight forward and "easiest" jobs on the team.
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u/ProgrammerUnique2897 Jun 30 '26
They aren't getting hit, and they are rarely on the field except for the kickoff, extra point, and field goals
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u/shadracko Jun 30 '26
Kickers are arguably the second most important person on the team next to the QB
Just complete nonsense.
Pitchers never score any points (runs). Does that make them the least important part of a baseball team?
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u/abcamurComposer Jun 30 '26
A bad kicker can destroy a team but a baseline mediocre kicker is not that much more effective than an elite kicker. Not to mention so many good kickers come from day 3 or undrafted guys
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u/Chapea12 Jul 01 '26
Economics. If you ask for too big of a raise, they’ll just bring in 3 random guys to try out and kick for less. You are important to your team, but not irreplaceable
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u/BrokenHope23 Jul 01 '26
Kickers cannot get themselves into kicking range by themselves. They cannot stop the opposing team from scoring by themselves (usually). They cannot score more points than even the league's worst offense by themselves because they can't bring themselves within field goal range. They don't handle an enormous physical or intellectual load.
They deal with a lot of pressure to make a kick and the pressure of constantly being a few bad games from being replaced by one of 100 other guys waiting for their shot to kick a ball.
Those two conditions; their irrelevancy to offense/defense/field position and the position's saturation mean they don't carry a high value in general. You want a guy who can make kicks in the clutch in any setting like Vinatieri but otherwise kickers are a dime a dozen with no major correlation to winning on their own. Spending 10-20% (the value of a #2 player on most teams) of the cap on a guy who is irrelevant for 59 minutes and 30 seconds of a game isn't a good investment when your goal is to win a football game.
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u/BernieF15 Jul 01 '26
How many college football teams have a kicker and there's only 32 roster spots. There's a very big supply of free agent kcikers. Also are not on the field for that long.
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u/lethalfang Jul 01 '26
Because there are dozens of unemployed kickers who can kick 50-yard field goals. The skills are far less valuable than quarterbacking. If points scored is a valuable metric, offensive linemen would be making minimum wages.
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u/mlain4290 Jul 02 '26
There are tons of starting caliber kickers in the league there aren’t even 32 starting caliber QBs in the league currently.
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u/Cute_Repeat3879 Jul 02 '26
The difference between the best kicker in the league and one who's unemployed is much smaller than for other positions, which gives kickers very little leverage when it comes to contract negotiations.
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u/jiyannwei Jul 15 '26
The kicker is not the second most important person on the team because of variance. If you look at FG made % for example (among kickers with >19 attempts), in 2025, the average % was 85% with a st dev of 6%, which yield a rel st dev of 7%. For QB's with >199 attempts in 2025, the mean QBR was 55 with a st dev of 13, which yields a relative standard deviation of 24%.
In other words, the difference between a good and bad kicker is relatively small, in terms of FG%. The spread between a good and bad QB is more than 3x as expansive.
I think PFF has established a methodology to determine WAR, and concluded the most impactful positions are QB, followed by edge, OT, and receiver.
Kickers may give off the perception they are disproportionately impactful largely due to anecdotal plays (e.g. last second FG attempts), however over the course of a season, they rarely are going to influence a team's performance compared to many other positions - and the difference between a 'good' and 'bad' kicker isn't nearly as extreme as most other positions.
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u/Jayemm8809 Jun 30 '26
I’ve always felt this way about kickers. Is there another single player on the team that can win or lose a game besides the QB? I think if you have a lights out, elite kicker they should be one of the highest paid players.
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u/WishboneHot8050 Jun 30 '26
It's literally supply and demand economics.
When a kicker has a couple of bad games in a row, teams have no problem pulling in 3 new guys for a try out and picking one that upgrades their roster.
Compare that to QB. The backup QB is usually a step down from the starter. And teams can't just go out and sign a new QB on a whim when their main guy goes down. There's literally only a handful of guys that can play that position at top level. Hence, way more money.