I would argue yes. He will play 20 plus years at a very high level. Had the Raiders been competitive the last ten seasons, he would likely be a HoF lock. I understand the school of thought that claims no kicker is worth a 1st round pick. Both Janekowski and Vinitieri argue against this.
Your thoughts?
He’s made 557/563 point-after attempts (98.9%) in 17 years in the NFL. That’s 557 points.
He’s made 414/515 field goal attempts (80.4%) as well, for 1242 points.
Cite.
That’s a lot of scoring.
How long do other 1st round picks play and how many points do they score (offensive players only, for ease of comparison)?
No.
While I’m sure the position players the Raiders could have drafted in that spot may have busted at a significant rate, the difference between a great kicker and a late rounder/waiver-wire add isn’t that significant. Whereas a first round pick can make a huge difference if you can hit on a long-term starter and such players are very difficult to find a UDFAs.
I would say in retrospect was definitely worth the pick. I would still never support actually taking a kicker in the first round at any time, but he turned out to be an excellent kicker, and after refreshing myself with a review of that draft we was absolutely in the top half of the first round judged on NFL impact that year, and probably around 6-8 in my valuation.
But I think what separates Janikowski is his effective range. He makes the field smaller.
Eventually, maybe, but I nicknamed him Jani-Costs-ki for a good reason; in his first few years, he had a habit of missing field goals from 40+ yards at the end of games that would have won, or at least, tied the game for the Raiders.
Hey, it took, what, 15 years for John Elway to get a Super Bowl for Denver?
No, Janikowski wasn’t worth a first-round pick. That’s not his fault - there has never been an NFL kicker who was worth a first round pick.
The numbers posted by Snowboarder Bo are impressive, but they’re impressive because he’s played for 17 years and not because he’s a world-class kicker. His percentages are pretty close to league average. He’s 11th among active players at extra point percentage and 24th among active players at field goal percentage. That second number is probably less impressive than it could be, given his range - he attempts some kicks that other kickers wouldn’t try for, and those are the kicks he’s more likely to miss. Still, over his career he’s 55/100 from 50+ yards; in 2016 the league average was 57% from that distance. You could argue that this hurt Oakland in 2016 - he was 3/8 from 50+, and a miss from that far out hurts a lot more than a miss from closer in. His range adds some value on kickoffs that isn’t reflected in the stats here.
IMHO, Janikowski’s spent his career moving back and forth between the first and second quartile of the league. He’s been a consistent kicker for a long time, but you can get that in the 7th round (e.g. Josh Brown, 83.9% over 14 years), or from an undrafted rookie (e.g. Adam Vinatieri - 84.3% over 21 years or Shayne Graham - 85.5% over 15 years). Consistent kickers aren’t rare, and the opportunity cost of spending a fist round pick on a pretty good player at one of the least consequential positions is huge.
There’s also the issue that when Oakland drafted Janikowski he was in the middle of some criminal charges. He was eventually acquitted but there was a realistic possibility he might have never played.
Comparisons of amount of points scored is not at all relevant. Maybe marginal points scored per season vs average kicker compared to marginal points scored per season by 1st round QB/RB/WR vs average QB/RB?WR.
If an average kicked scored 1100 points, a first round QB scores 600 pts and an average QB scores 400 points, then Janikowski is a horrible pick even though he scored way more points than the QB. (and really should be normalized per season, but I didn’t feel like it)
I hear what you’re saying, Snarky and you too Enginerd, but I’m still curious to pursue my line of inquiry.
What I’m wondering is: how much was/is Janekowski’s contract? What has it cost the team in dollars per point? How does that compare to other first round draft picks? How long is the average first round draft pick’s career?
If the average (let’s say) receiver drafted in the first round plays an average of 4 years and scores 6 TDs (36 points) per year at a cost of $4M/year and Janekowski scores 100 points per year for $1M/year AND has lasted 4x as long in the league as the hypothetical receiver, I’d think there’s a good argument that the team has gotten their money’s worth and made good use of their draft pick.
I don’t think that’s a good way to look at it (and its gonna make him look worse than he is, because the Raiders are nuts), but let’s check some numbers.
Janikowski has made $48,270,137 in 17 seasons. He’s scored 1799 points, for a total cost of $26,831 per point. Compare that to the undrafted Adam Vinatieri, who’s as close to a surefire Hall of Famer as a kicker is going to get. Vinatieri’s made $40,881,999 over 21 seasons. He’s scored 2389 points, for an average cost of $17,112 per point. Of course, Vinatieri started 4 years earlier than Janikowskie, so is that number skewed by inflation? The consensus best kicker in the league right now is Justin Tucker (also undrafted). Tucker’s made $11,796,000 in 5 years while scoring 970 points, for a total cost of $12,160 per point. Over those five years, Janikowski’s made $18,255,637 and scored 528 points ($34,575/point).
Janikowski, who’s (again, IMO) a little better than a league average kicker, has been paid one and a half times as much per point scored as the best kicker of his generation (Vinatieri). Over the last five years, he’s been paid almost three times as much per point as the best kicker in the league.
Janikowski is under contract for 2017 with a salary of $4.05M. Vinatieri’s signed for 2017 at $2.75M. Tucker is under contract through 2019, with salaries of $2.8M (2017), $2.95M (2018), and $3.05M (2019). And just by way of baseline, an undrafted free agent kicker can be signed in 2017 for $465,000.
Raiders fan here, and I’d say flatly: no.
His longevity has made him a bit of a fan favorite (stick around on any team for 17 years and be good, and you’ll have fans) but he’s pretty much been an average kicker in his career. To be worth the draft pick he’d need to be one of the best kickers in the league most years, I think. In the years he’s been in the league, here’s where the Raiders finished among teams for field goal %: 28, 11, 15, 5, 4, 32, 30, 29, 25, 6, 22, 6, 5, 32, 10, 28, 20. So 7/17 seasons he was in the top third, and 7/17 seasons he’s been in the bottom third. Yes, you can argue that his FG % is artificially lower because some of his coaches (Lane Kiffin cough) liked to throw him out there to attempt long kicks that supposedly only he could do, but if he’s still missing them, is that really helping?
Now, his big leg would also be useful on kickoffs, and to be fair, he does seem to hit a fair amount of them (especially considering he plays at Oakland, which is below sea level), but he’s never been automatic on them. Unfortunately can’t find good stats for touchback percentage.
All in all I’d say he’s been decent on the whole, and could’ve been replaced by any other kicker without much of a difference. Of course, doesn’t help the Raiders were terrible anyways for most of his career, so it’s not as if he got many opportunities to really make a difference.
(Basically, what Enginerd said.)
You’ve gotta look at opportunity cost, though. Had the Raiders drafted someone else, it’d be pretty easy to find another kicker near the end of the draft or off the street that would do the same things Janikowski does. Whereas it’s harder to find a comparable talent at other positions late.
I don’t think that’s the best statistic for judging a kicker’s value.
Suppose a top tier kicker gets $2,000,000 a year and scores a hundred points a year. Now consider if you can get an average kicker who gets $500,000 a year and scores eighty-five points a year. Is it worth it to hire the top tier kicker? Both kickers will score you eight-five points a year. So what the top tier kicker is doing is getting you an additional fifteen points a year at a cost of $1,500,000.
Another factor is how much effect it has on the team’s success. Using my figures from above, the top tier kicker will give you, on average, about one additional point per game. That’s rarely a factor in the game’s outcome; most games are won or lost by more than a one point difference. So that $1,500,000 might not change the outcome of a single game in an entire season.
It is funny that a thread discussing using first round picks on a kicker hasn’t mentioned Ray Guy. That the Raiders had taken a punter with their first pick indicated that Al Davis might do something similar in the future.
Thanks for the replies Enginerd, magnusblitz and Little Nemo; y’all make some good points there.
I can see, however, that to a team owner spending an extra 1.5M/year on a kicker who can give you that late game field goal for the win might be an acceptable expense. Certainly we’ve all seen games that come down to that (and I went to FSU and was at Doak Campbell Stadium on 16 November 1991 :mad: ).
But as I said, y’all make some very good points. Thanks again for the analysis.
I don’t disagree, but Janikowski’s making an extra $2-3M a year and offering little to no benefit over a replacement level kicker.
I’ll see your “Wide Right” and raise you: I was a Ravens fan at the 2011 AFC Championship.
The problem with that is salary caps. Team owners can’t just say “I want my team to be the best and I don’t care about the expense. Hire the best possible player for every position.” Salary caps make that impossible. Paying one player more means you have to pay another player less. And, to the extent the free market exists in the NFL, better players cost more money. So you can’t have the best players in every position; you have to choose where you want the best players and where you’ll accept having players who are just average.
Haha! That was terrible! I looked him up and was shocked (SHOCKED, I tell you!) that the very next day the Ravens signed him to a 5 year/$15M contract, and then released him just 20 months later.
At least Gerry Thomas’ kick was a legitimate attempt.
I know we’ll disagree here, but to me Wide Right is the bigger tragedy; the rivalry between FSU & Miami, even then, went back many years and IMO transcends the importance and status found in an NFL conference championship. YMMV (and if you’re a Ravens fan, surely does in this case; totally understandable).
Oh yeah, I know about the salary cap and all, but as you say, owners (and coaches) have to prioritize and I can see where someone would prioritize a kicker, even if the number crunching doesn’t back it up. In other words, I’m not saying it was a smart priority, just that it’s understandable that it could be one. People make mistakes, ya know what I’m sayin’?
I definitely think you can make the argument that someone like Gostkowski or Justin Tucker are worth paying additional salaries. I might even say that, if there was a guy in the draft who you were 100% sure was going to be the next Gostkowski/Tucker, he’d be worth a mid-round 1st round pick (assuming there’s not a gaping hole you can fill elsewhere on the roster).
But Jano? No.
Yeah, I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you here… 
Go Ravens!