Don’t you just wish this was the 1970’s? You could legit quit your job, show up at an NFL stadium, and get a chance to be the starting kicker. Perhaps even if you required parking in a handicapped spot. The early 1970’s were truly dark times for NFL kickers which will soon be explained fully.

Luckily, the 1980’s was the era of kicking reformation and enlightenment. From 1980 – 1983, the NFL made its biggest three-year league-wide improvement from roughly 64 – 72 percent.  I imagine that during this time, NFL kickers were finally allowed admittance to attend team practices.

1983’s 72 or so percent average seemed to be the resistance point for the next couple of years before crashing in 1986 in a much similar way as 2019. As you can see, after this crash came year-over-year improvements for four years, with much more improvement still to come in the 1990’s and beyond.

So honestly, the big scary drop in kicking accuracy from 2019 isn’t anything to worry about for 2020 and beyond and we as fans need to be more thankful for what we have. I can think of no better way to do this than to look back at the dark ages of NFL field goal kicking and regale on the five worst field goal kicking teams since the NFL merger.

#5: 1970 Boston Patriots

Gino Cappelletti was the star kicker on the 1970 Boston Patriots: a team so bad (2-12) they were disowned by the city of Boston and forced to change their name to New England the following year. Anyway, Cappelletti was the team’s star kicker as he led the team in field goal accuracy at 40 percent on 15 attempts. This was a drastic improvement over their other place kicker, Charlie Gogolak, who ended his 1970 campaign at 28.6 percent on seven attempts.

#4: 1970 Atlanta Falcons

1970 does indeed have two of the worst five teams in NFL field goal kicking accuracy. Representing the NFC in kicking suckage, Ken Vinyard of the Atlanta Falcons connected on just 9 of all the team’s 25 attempts on the year. That’s a cool 36 percent even. The amazing part about this is that he was the only kicker to attempt a kick that year for the Falcons. If this doesn’t convey the league-wide dearth of kicking talent during these dark ages, I don’t know what will.

Vinyard made the hard decision to call his career a quits after that down year and was never again seen in an NFL game. Every kicker has to make the choice to retire at some point. Generally speaking, this usually doesn’t happen after their first season at age 23 like Vinyard, but hey, everyone’s different.

#3: 1970 Pittsburgh Steelers

I feel it necessary to remind you that this is indeed a list of the five worst kicking teams in NFL history, not just 1970. But here is 1970 again with a third top-fiver. This is pretty sad, but what’s even sadder is that if you look back at the last graph showing league-wide averages, you’ll notice that 1971 was even worse overall than 1970.

The Pittsburgh Steelers had the best record of the three 1970 teams on this list. They went 5 – 9. Gene Mingo connected on just 5 out of 18 kicks for a 27.8 percent average. Unlike the Falcons though, the Steelers actually gave a shit and got a new guy mid-season named Allen Watson. He prevented the team from being #1 on this list by making 50 percent (5/10) of his kicks. He didn’t win the NFL MVP that year, but I have to believe he was considered.

#2: 1971 New York Giants

How many of you would have bet your life that this list did not include another guy named Gogolak?

Pete Gogolak – brother of aforementioned Charlie Gogolak – had no one to blame but himself as the sole kicker of the 1971 New York Giants after finishing 35.3 percent (6/17) on the year. You’d think Thanksgiving dinners with multiple sons playing in the NFL (Gronkowskis, Mannings, Watts, Bosas’, Griffins, Bennetts, etc.) would bring much joy and pride to any parent as their sons go back and forth at the table regaling upon their accomplishments. Then, there is the Gogolaks.

Some claim a name is more than just a name. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and we tend to attach ourselves to any hidden meaning that lies within. There’s some anecdotal evidence of this too. I’ve never heard anyone with the last name of “Longwell” that wasn’t an NFL field goal kicker. One out of one for me. It’s as perfect as a name gets and Ryan kicked very long and very well in his NFL career. This might be a less than scientific conclusion based on one person but it’s corroborated inversely by the fact that if your name sounds like you are a bad kicker, it’s because you are a bad kicker. For instance, Chris Blewitt couldn’t even make the team on the 2019 Chicago Bears.

What about the Gogolaks?

Gogolak might not be a real word but you literally cannot spell Pete Gogolak without “galoot” (definition: a clumsy oafish person).

#1: 1972 Baltimore Colts

The worst kicking team in NFL history was the 1972 Baltimore Colts who connected on just 33.3 percent of their 39 total field goal attempts. Their starting kicker/wide Receiver (yes, kicker/wide receiver), Jim O’Brien, started the year and in his eight games made 13 out of 31 total attempts (41.9%) before realizing that despite being perhaps the best field goal kicking wide receiver in NFL history, he was still very bad.

After his benching, the only mathematical way for the Colts to go from 13/31 after the first eight games to end with a 33.3 percent average on 39 attempts was to have a figure finish the year by missing an additional 8 field goal attempts without a single make (13/39 = 33.3%).

Enter Boris Shlapak.