Long Snappers: What's the point?

[Dutch]

Always with an eye towards the more important aspects of FOF, I just ran a 10 season test to find out what effect, if any, the long-snapper had on the kicker.

No injuries allowed for this test. I kept everything exactly the same, so nothing should need be recited for the layout. The start point was just before the first week of exhibitions. Starting lineups would stay the same, gameplan the same, everything equal except...

You guessed it, the long snapper!

The first five seasons were run with a center with long-snapping skills rated by my scout at 98.

The next five seasons were run with a tight end with long-snapping skills rated by my scout at 0 (zero).

The Kicker, a rookie, starts off rated 34/54. He develops on average to 43.2 with the 98 rated long-snapper and to 42.6 with the 0 (zero) rated long-snapper. Okay, maybe that's something...

But...

The Tale of the Tape is more telling, sort of.

Field Goal %
w/98 Center - 141 of 216 (65.3%)
w/0 Tight End - 143 of 203 (70.4%)

Field Goal % (40 yards or more)
w/98 Center - 67 of 129 (51.9%)
w/0 Tight End - 64 of 113 (56.6%)

Field Goal % (50 yards or more)
w/98 Center - 26 of 51 (51.0%)
w/0 Tight End - 32 of 51 (62.7%)

PAT %
w/98 Center - 131 of 132 (99.24%)
w/0 Tight End - 132 of 133 (99.25%)

Other than the fact that the kicker did better with the lowest rated long-snapper in the business, what am I missing about the long-snappers importance?

[QuikSand]

My first instinct and hope would be that your sample size remains too small. I wouldn't have thought so, though, and the consistency suggests otherwise.

Perhaps the blocking skills of the TE are better than those of the C? (Seems unlikely)

Weird stuff.

[Bode]

Isn't long snapping more related to punters?

And is the field goal considered a miss if the holder messes up the snap? Or is it just a fumble?

[sabotai]

Do bad snaps count as FG attempts? Also, what about Punting stats?

[mac]

I agree they are odd results if you do a chi squared test the results aren't significant. But If you break it down inside the 40, 40-49 and 50 plus the 0 snapper is amazing inside the 40 with a 99% while the 98 snapper is only 85%. This is highly significant p=.001 the rest arent significant. Perhaps with the 0 snapper there were more chipshots, were both players on the team at the same time and if not was the TE a better player?

I agree you should check the puntig figures as well.

[kcchief19]

Do bad snaps count as FG attempts? Also, what about Punting stats?
No, they don't.

I'm not sure that these statistics measure what you're actually wanting to measure. I would reason that field goal percentage would be more closely related to kick holding skills than snapping skills. Long-snapping skills are more related to actually getting the kick off in the first place.

In that regard, the team attempted one more PAT with the 0 snapper. Unusual, but not statistically significant.

The team attemped 29 fewer field goals with the 0 snapper over those five seasons. What was the cause of this? Fewer scoring opportunities? Were there botched snaps that didn't result in a field goal try?

My impression is that the point of having a long-snapping specialist is to avoid bad snaps. If the difference between a 0 LS and a 98 LS are six field goal tries per year, I'd say that's statistically significant.

I'm guessing that the fewer field goal tries is due to more than just bad snaps, but I think you'd have to go through the box scores to know for sure. But let's assume for just a moment that half of that 29 number is due to bad snaps -- that's three bad snaps per season. I think most football fans would be pulling their hair out if their team botched three field snaps per year. And this also doesn't take into account punting snaps.

I don't dispute you raising the question -- I'm just not sure you're using a statistic that actually correlates to what you're attempting to quantify.

[Dutch]

I did not test punting stats. I figured the results would be inconclusive with the FG stats before I started and basically got the stats I was looking for.

Anyway, I probably should have used players from the same position group, but at the time I figured it shouldn't matter.

Anyway, here are the two long snappers. They were both on my team at the same time and both signed fresh for this experiment. FWIW.

http://www.explodinghouse.net/fof/gene.png

http://www.explodinghouse.net/fof/kelly.png

[gstelmack]

You have a lousy kicker here. How 'bout trying with a better kicker?

Did you track blocks or other reasons for the misses?

[Dutch]

No, the only thing I tracked was on the kickers stat line under "kicking" at the end of the regular season.

[Dutch]

No, they don't.

I'm not sure that these statistics measure what you're actually wanting to measure. I would reason that field goal percentage would be more closely related to kick holding skills than snapping skills. Long-snapping skills are more related to actually getting the kick off in the first place.

You are probable right. Of course, I would imagine that kick holding skills would translate to muffed FG's as well. I don't even know if that's tracked in gamelogs to be honest.

I don't dispute you raising the question -- I'm just not sure you're using a statistic that actually correlates to what you're attempting to quantify.

I think you are probably correct there as well.

I guess it would come down to looking through gamelogs to figure out the importance of this position.

[Dutch]

On a side note, when did the box scores and game logs switch from HTML based to FOF Browser based? That's really nice.

[Dutch]

One last note on this before I head out for some rest.

I resimmed another season with the 0 rated TE at long-snapping duties and scanned the gamelogs (which are so easy to read now, btw). I did not see his name come up adversely in the gamelogs in 16 games and one wild card game. Just standard fair. Kicker kicks FG, kicker misses..., punter punts...

The only thing of note were two blocked FG tries during the season, both were annoted as missed FG's, as they should. No sign of muff's or fumbles on the FG tries.