If the scores are tied in this weekend's Super Bowl and the game rests on the outcome of a field goal attempt, the chart below will tell you the chances of the goal being made. All you need to know is the distance of the kick:
What this says that if the kick is longer than 50 yards, there's pretty much no chance. The chart was created by Decision Science News (using the R statistical programming language) by tabulating field goal successes for all 10,750 attempts by all NFL teams since 2002. It would be interesting to the stats for just the Ravens and the 49ers; perhaps an R user would use the source data to make the comparison?
Decision Science News: Football geeks, your 10,705 field goals are ready (via Dan Goldstein).
Is that attempt from behind the 80-yard line correct? Wikipedia says the longest attempt in NFL history was 76 yards: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_goal_(American_and_Canadian_football)#Longest_field_goal_records
Posted by: Joe | January 28, 2013 at 18:19
I think the relevant data is probably fgs from the 2012 season which has seen an increase in makes from beyond 50 yards
Posted by: John reeder | January 28, 2013 at 21:17
" if the kick is longer than 50 yards, there's pretty much no chance" No. You mean if a kick is taken from beyond the 50 yard line. Lots of kicks "longer than 50 yards" are made every season.
Posted by: David Kane | January 29, 2013 at 05:48
It would be far more useful / interesting for someone to provide the comparison vs the probability of 4th and X (yards) situations.
Posted by: Alex | January 29, 2013 at 10:18
Joe: You're right. The very long attempts are just errors in the data. See the original Decision Science News posts for the actual lines of data.
Posted by: Dan Goldstein | January 31, 2013 at 19:10
I don't particularly follow football, but I love the fact that this graph almost follows the trajectory of a field goal kick.
Posted by: sediger | February 01, 2013 at 16:51
This maybe change depending on the players. But I wonder what's the importance of getting this kind of data.
Posted by: college sports | March 03, 2013 at 08:47