Icing The Kicker

The Jets win versus the Chargers raises the question whether icing the kicker (calling a timeout before his potentially game-winning or game-tying kick) works.

Statisticians Scott Berry and Craig Wood researched the topic in the November 2004 issue of Chance magazine.

Berry and Wood analyzed 2002 and 2003 field goal attempts (2,003 in total) by 52 different kickers. Over 78 percent (78.1 to be precise) were successful.

Berry and Wood then broke out game-winning or game-tying kicks attempted with less than three minutes left. They found 139 such pressure kicks, and 101 (73 percent) were good.

But after the 38 times that the defense called a timeout, only 24 (63 percent) of these kicks connected.

The authors then created a mathematical model representing the probability of a successful kick that factored in distance, weather conditions and the ability of different kickers.

The results according to Berry and Wood: the probability of late game-winning or tying field goal from 40 yards in sunny weather by an average kicker is 75.9 percent. That same kicker in the same conditions will make that same kick 65.9 percent of the time after they've been iced.