Comparing Lawrence Tynes and Connor Barth

Recently in mid-July, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ place kicker, Connor Barth, tore his Achilles tendon during a charity basketball game. Quickly, the Bucs’ signed Lawrence Tynes. So who is Tynes and what exactly are we going to expect?

If we are looking solely looking at percentages, then the drop off in talent between the two place kickers is marginal. If you look at the PPG stat, then Tynes is an obvious scoring machine. Both of the place kickers had one of their missed field goal attempts blocked: Barth’s blocked kick was at the 35 yard line and Tynes blocked kick was at the 40 yard line. So technically, Barth is perfect from 39 yards and in once the ball passes the line of scrimmage. So far these are mumbo jumbo stats being bandied about. Let us inspect a smaller portion of the 2012 Field Goal Stats, presented above.

If we focus on field goals in the 30 – 49 yard range, we notice that Barth is not simply 0.2% better as shown in the former chart, but rather 4.2% better. There is one idea that one can infer from this second chart, oddly enough, is that the Bucs’ offense is stopped further away from the end zone than the Giants’ offense.

In the 50 + yard range is where Barth separates himself from Tynes, and vice versa, but in a negative fashion. The longest field goal Tynes made was a 50 yarder. For Barth, his longest made field goal was from 57 yards out. Tynes missed a 51 and 54 yard FGs; Barth missed 54, 55, and 56 yard FGs. To attempt a 50 yard field goal, the ball lays 18 yards away, which would be the 32 yard scrimmage line. This would mean Tynes would affect the capacity of how the offense can score. Coach Schiano will be forced to go for it on fourth down if the line of scrimmage is around the 32 yard marker.

Tynes is a serviceable place kicker, provided one is not to rely on him from long range. There is one pattern I discovered about Tynes’ kicking that should scare us Buc fans – his leg became fatigued as the season wore on. That means our offense needs to be a cohesive unit that can score touchdowns in the last six games of the year. At 35 years old, Tynes’ elasticity maybe stiffening. Here are the last six game stats for Tynes.

Barth, on the other hand, was 11 for 12 in the final six games (91.6% accuracy). The missed field goal was the 56 yard field goal attempt at the end of the first Atlanta game.

So Tynes is old and he is coming down south where the weather is much warmer and easier on the muscles. We will play at least six games against our division rivals where two are housed in domes. I hope Tynes has a very good beginning, but note caution on how might all end.