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Evan McPherson on the Doink Compass

A snapshot of where Evan McPherson sits on the Compass. Volume runs left-to-right, conversion runs bottom-to-top. The reference is every qualifying NFL kicker over the modern era of field goals, 2005 to 2025.

The Doink CompassLeague · 2005–2025 · FG only · spotlight: Evan McPherson
Low Volume · High ConversionHigh Volume · High ConversionLow Volume · Low ConversionHigh Volume · Low ConversionPrecision OpportunistsLow Volume · High ConversionBank-Shot SyndicateHigh Volume · High ConversionDoink DesertersLow Volume · Low ConversionMagnetic CursedHigh Volume · Low Conversion0.0250.0500.0750.1000.0625 ≈ 1/seasonDoink Rate (per game)≈1 per 40 games≈1 per 10 games0%10%20%30%40%50%60%60%30%Made Doink RateMason Crosby — 17 doinks in 279 games, 12% made, doink rate 0.061/gameNick Folk — 15 doinks in 261 games, 7% made, doink rate 0.058/gameSebastian Janikowski — 14 doinks in 202 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.069/gameCairo Santos — 13 doinks in 170 games, 31% made, doink rate 0.077/gameChris Boswell — 12 doinks in 178 games, 42% made, doink rate 0.067/gameMatt Prater — 12 doinks in 276 games, 33% made, doink rate 0.044/gameGreg Zuerlein — 12 doinks in 192 games, 8% made, doink rate 0.063/gameMatt Gay — 12 doinks in 108 games, 17% made, doink rate 0.111/gameRob Bironas — 0 doinks in 142 gamesEvan McPherson — 5 doinks in 84 games, 40% made, doink rate 0.060/gameM. CrosbyN. FolkS. JanikowskiC. SantosC. BoswellM. PraterG. ZuerleinM. GayR. BironasE. McPherson
10 kickers · 112 total doinks · 19% made overall
Spotlighting Evan McPherson (orange) against the top kicker in each quadrant plus the top 8 by volume. Cartesian plot of 10 NFL kickers with 4+ career doinks across 2+ seasons (plus zero-doink kickers shown as hollow dots) (field goals only), positioned by doinks per game played (X-axis) and made-doink conversion rate (Y-axis). Quadrants split at a 0.0625 doink rate (~1 doink per 16-game season) and 30% made rate. Triangles indicate kickers beyond the chart bounds (below 0.02 or above 0.105 doink rate, or above 60% made rate). Dot opacity reflects games played within the period (more solid = longer tenure). Coverage: 2005–2025.
Evan McPherson is among the Precision Opportunists, leaning toward Bank-Shot Syndicate — the nearest visible kicker on the chart is Chris Boswell, in the Bank-Shot Syndicate.
57 kickers qualify

Reading the Compass

One of the most common questions about doinks feels almost mean-spirited (which kicker is the most doink-prone?) and offers some of the least interesting answers. Sort by highest doinks-per-game and the leader is whoever played in fits and starts. Sort by career total doink count and the leader is whoever played the longest. Both numbers describe tenure, not the kicker. Doinks-per-game is the better yardstick of the two, but on its own it's a baseline measure, useful for grounding analysis but not a verdict.

Made-doink rate is where it gets interesting. If luck were the only factor, kickers plotted by their made-doink percentage should drift toward some theoretical equilibrium. Some do. Some don't. The increase in made-doink rate over time may be a product of survivor bias (kickers who can't convert their doinks don't keep their jobs), but the extremes of the scale invite the question regardless. And the relationship between volume and made-rate sits in the uncanny valley of correlation: related enough that the relationship is meaningful, but loose enough that one variable doesn't determine the other. They don't track each other, so a chart can pull them apart.

The horizontal axis tracks doink rate, meaning career doinks divided by career games played. A doink rate of 0.0625 works out to roughly one doink every sixteen games, or about one a season. Above that line a kicker sits on the right half of the Compass. Below it, the left. The vertical axis tracks made-doink conversion, the percentage of a kicker's career doinks that bounced through for a score. Above 30%, top half. Below, bottom. The two lines cross to make four quadrants, and each one fills with a different profile of kicker.

At the far edge of the lower-left, hollow dots represent kickers who recorded zero career doinks across a qualifying length of career. This is The Bironas Class. Rob Bironas himself is the namesake. Across nine seasons in Tennessee at 85.7% career FG accuracy, his record contains zero doinks. At Olindo Mare's rate (the dataset's lowest qualifying doink rate, roughly one doink every 68 games), Bironas's career would have predicted at least a couple. He registered none. Among qualifying kickers with 100+ career games during the window, he's the only one whose record stays empty. The next-closest non-doinker, Jake Bates, played 35 games. The Bironas Class isn't its own quadrant or archetype, just an anomaly at the outer bounds of doink lore — the limit case of the Doink Deserters where the record stays clean.

The Four Archetypes

Low Volume · High ConversionHigh Volume · High ConversionLow Volume · Low ConversionHigh Volume · Low Conversion0.0250.0500.0750.1000.0625Doink Rate (per game)≈1 per 40 games≈1 per 10 games0%10%20%30%40%50%60%60%30%Made Doink RateMason Crosby — 17 doinks in 279 games, 12% made, doink rate 0.061/gameNick Folk — 15 doinks in 261 games, 7% made, doink rate 0.058/gameSebastian Janikowski — 14 doinks in 202 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.069/gameCairo Santos — 13 doinks in 170 games, 31% made, doink rate 0.077/gameMatt Prater — 12 doinks in 276 games, 33% made, doink rate 0.044/gameGreg Zuerlein — 12 doinks in 192 games, 8% made, doink rate 0.063/gameMatt Gay — 12 doinks in 108 games, 17% made, doink rate 0.111/gameRob Bironas — 0 doinks in 142 gamesChris Boswell — 12 doinks in 178 games, 42% made, doink rate 0.067/gameM. CrosbyN. FolkS. JanikowskiC. SantosM. PraterG. ZuerleinM. GayR. BironasC. Boswell

The Bank-Shot Syndicate

High Volume · High Conversion · Top-Right Quadrant

The architects of the iron. These kickers strike the post often enough that you can't call it rare. And yet, when contact happens, the bounce goes their way more often than not. Skill, luck, or something about how leg power changes the bounce? Pick your favorite explanation. The doinks keep going through.

Current exemplar: Chris Boswell (12 career doinks, 42% made).

Low Volume · High ConversionHigh Volume · High ConversionLow Volume · Low ConversionHigh Volume · Low Conversion0.0250.0500.0750.1000.0625Doink Rate (per game)≈1 per 40 games≈1 per 10 games0%10%20%30%40%50%60%60%30%Made Doink RateMason Crosby — 17 doinks in 279 games, 12% made, doink rate 0.061/gameNick Folk — 15 doinks in 261 games, 7% made, doink rate 0.058/gameSebastian Janikowski — 14 doinks in 202 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.069/gameCairo Santos — 13 doinks in 170 games, 31% made, doink rate 0.077/gameChris Boswell — 12 doinks in 178 games, 42% made, doink rate 0.067/gameMatt Prater — 12 doinks in 276 games, 33% made, doink rate 0.044/gameGreg Zuerlein — 12 doinks in 192 games, 8% made, doink rate 0.063/gameMatt Gay — 12 doinks in 108 games, 17% made, doink rate 0.111/gameRob Bironas — 0 doinks in 142 gamesRodrigo Blankenship — 6 doinks in 24 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.250/gameM. CrosbyN. FolkS. JanikowskiC. SantosC. BoswellM. PraterG. ZuerleinM. GayR. BironasR. Blankenship

The Magnetic Cursed

High Volume · Low Conversion · Bottom-Right Quadrant

The Parkey Zone. The uprights act as a tractor beam, and the iron is strictly no-entry. High-volume tragedy where the post is a brick wall, never a backboard. These are the careers that come down to single moments. The misses are what stick.

Current exemplar: Rodrigo Blankenship (6 career doinks, 0% made).

Low Volume · High ConversionHigh Volume · High ConversionLow Volume · Low ConversionHigh Volume · Low Conversion0.0250.0500.0750.1000.0625Doink Rate (per game)≈1 per 40 games≈1 per 10 games0%10%20%30%40%50%60%60%30%Made Doink RateMason Crosby — 17 doinks in 279 games, 12% made, doink rate 0.061/gameNick Folk — 15 doinks in 261 games, 7% made, doink rate 0.058/gameSebastian Janikowski — 14 doinks in 202 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.069/gameCairo Santos — 13 doinks in 170 games, 31% made, doink rate 0.077/gameChris Boswell — 12 doinks in 178 games, 42% made, doink rate 0.067/gameMatt Prater — 12 doinks in 276 games, 33% made, doink rate 0.044/gameGreg Zuerlein — 12 doinks in 192 games, 8% made, doink rate 0.063/gameMatt Gay — 12 doinks in 108 games, 17% made, doink rate 0.111/gameRob Bironas — 0 doinks in 142 gamesDan Bailey — 9 doinks in 156 games, 67% made, doink rate 0.058/gameM. CrosbyN. FolkS. JanikowskiC. SantosC. BoswellM. PraterG. ZuerleinM. GayR. BironasD. Bailey

The Precision Opportunists

Low Volume · High Conversion · Top-Left Quadrant

They don't find the upright often. But when they do, the kick has the right English to spin through. Efficiency at its most accidental. Few kickers actually live here. The high-conversion-low-volume corner is genuinely thin, more of a tendency than a club.

Current exemplar: Dan Bailey (9 career doinks, 67% made).

Low Volume · High ConversionHigh Volume · High ConversionLow Volume · Low ConversionHigh Volume · Low Conversion0.0250.0500.0750.1000.0625Doink Rate (per game)≈1 per 40 games≈1 per 10 games0%10%20%30%40%50%60%60%30%Made Doink RateMason Crosby — 17 doinks in 279 games, 12% made, doink rate 0.061/gameSebastian Janikowski — 14 doinks in 202 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.069/gameCairo Santos — 13 doinks in 170 games, 31% made, doink rate 0.077/gameChris Boswell — 12 doinks in 178 games, 42% made, doink rate 0.067/gameMatt Prater — 12 doinks in 276 games, 33% made, doink rate 0.044/gameGreg Zuerlein — 12 doinks in 192 games, 8% made, doink rate 0.063/gameMatt Gay — 12 doinks in 108 games, 17% made, doink rate 0.111/gameRob Bironas — 0 doinks in 142 gamesNick Folk — 15 doinks in 261 games, 7% made, doink rate 0.058/gameM. CrosbyS. JanikowskiC. SantosC. BoswellM. PraterG. ZuerleinM. GayR. BironasN. Folk

The Doink Deserters

Low Volume · Low Conversion · Bottom-Left Quadrant

Doinks happen, but rarely, and when they do the bounce usually goes the wrong way. Not strangers to the iron, exactly — just kickers who don't have much of a relationship with it either way. Their doinks are a season-marker thing, not a career-defining thing.

Current exemplar: Nick Folk (15 career doinks, 7% made).

What the Compass Misses

The framework is a frame, not a verdict. A few honest limitations.

Distance is collapsed. A kicker whose doinks all happened on 50+ yard attempts is plotted the same as one whose doinks were all chip shots. The Compass treats every doink as one tally on the volume axis and one win-or-miss on the conversion axis. The article-side analysis (see A Fool's Library of Alexandria) digs into the distance question.

Clutch context is invisible. A doink in a 35-point blowout sits next to a doink in overtime. Both push a kicker the same amount on the chart. The broader dataset has game-altering classification. Could it feed a future Compass variant? Sure. Doesn't yet.

Field goals only. Extra points are excluded from this view. The 2015 rule change pushed extra points back to a 33-yard attempt, which reshapes XP doink rates so heavily that mixing them with FGs would warp the volume axis. An XP version of the Compass is on the maybe-someday pile.

Career length is implicit. A four-doink rookie sits next to a twenty-doink ten-year veteran if their per-game rates and made-rates line up. The Compass is a snapshot of behavior, not of accomplishment. See methodology for the threshold filters that keep the chart honest.

Methodology

The Compass plots field goal doinks only, 2005 through 2025. To qualify, a kicker needs at least four career doinks across two or more seasons; single-season spikes are excluded because one-game-three-doink streaks aren't a career pattern. Marker color reflects franchise tenure where applicable. The vertical axis caps at 60% (kickers above that ceiling are plotted at the boundary as edge markers). The horizontal axis ranges from 0.02 to 0.105 doinks per game, with the high-volume threshold at 0.0625 (≈ one doink per sixteen-game season). The Bironas Class (kickers with zero career doinks during the window) appears as hollow markers in the bottom-left corner.

The chart is a snapshot. Kicker positions update as the dataset grows, both as new doinks are verified and as historical games surface from archival footage.

The Full Field

Every kicker who qualifies, plotted together. This is the anchor view. It shows where kickers actually land, and which corners of the chart get crowded versus which stay empty.

Full FieldLeague · 2005–2025 · FG only
Low Volume · High ConversionHigh Volume · High ConversionLow Volume · Low ConversionHigh Volume · Low ConversionPrecision OpportunistsLow Volume · High ConversionBank-Shot SyndicateHigh Volume · High ConversionDoink DesertersLow Volume · Low ConversionMagnetic CursedHigh Volume · Low Conversion0.0250.0500.0750.1000.0625 ≈ 1/seasonDoink Rate (per game)≈1 per 40 games≈1 per 10 games0%10%20%30%40%50%60%60%30%Made Doink RateMason Crosby — 17 doinks in 279 games, 12% made, doink rate 0.061/gameNick Folk — 15 doinks in 261 games, 7% made, doink rate 0.058/gameSebastian Janikowski — 14 doinks in 202 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.069/gameCairo Santos — 13 doinks in 170 games, 31% made, doink rate 0.077/gameChris Boswell — 12 doinks in 178 games, 42% made, doink rate 0.067/gameMatt Prater — 12 doinks in 276 games, 33% made, doink rate 0.044/gameGreg Zuerlein — 12 doinks in 192 games, 8% made, doink rate 0.063/gameMatt Gay — 12 doinks in 108 games, 17% made, doink rate 0.111/gameChase McLaughlin — 11 doinks in 100 games, 18% made, doink rate 0.110/gameHarrison Butker — 11 doinks in 158 games, 36% made, doink rate 0.070/gameDan Carpenter — 11 doinks in 140 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.079/gameAdam Vinatieri — 10 doinks in 237 games, 30% made, doink rate 0.042/gameRyan Succop — 10 doinks in 221 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.045/gameJustin Tucker — 10 doinks in 227 games, 30% made, doink rate 0.044/gameDavid Akers — 10 doinks in 151 games, 30% made, doink rate 0.066/gameMike Nugent — 10 doinks in 172 games, 20% made, doink rate 0.058/gameWil Lutz — 9 doinks in 157 games, 11% made, doink rate 0.057/gameDan Bailey — 9 doinks in 156 games, 67% made, doink rate 0.058/gameBrandon McManus — 9 doinks in 186 games, 11% made, doink rate 0.048/gameJake Elliott — 9 doinks in 162 games, 11% made, doink rate 0.056/gameMatt Bryant — 9 doinks in 218 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.041/gameCody Parkey — 8 doinks in 85 games, 13% made, doink rate 0.094/gameConnor Barth — 8 doinks in 109 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.073/gameRandy Bullock — 8 doinks in 143 games, 25% made, doink rate 0.056/gameGraham Gano — 8 doinks in 214 games, 25% made, doink rate 0.037/gameStephen Gostkowski — 8 doinks in 247 games, 50% made, doink rate 0.032/gameKai Forbath — 7 doinks in 84 games, 29% made, doink rate 0.083/gameJosh Scobee — 7 doinks in 156 games, 14% made, doink rate 0.045/gameDaniel Carlson — 7 doinks in 126 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.056/gameJason Sanders — 7 doinks in 116 games, 14% made, doink rate 0.060/gameDustin Hopkins — 7 doinks in 140 games, 29% made, doink rate 0.050/gameNick Novak — 7 doinks in 114 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.061/gameJason Hanson — 7 doinks in 118 games, 29% made, doink rate 0.059/gameYounghoe Koo — 6 doinks in 98 games, 50% made, doink rate 0.061/gameJoey Slye — 6 doinks in 110 games, 33% made, doink rate 0.055/gameRodrigo Blankenship — 6 doinks in 24 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.250/gameRian Lindell — 6 doinks in 135 games, 17% made, doink rate 0.044/gameJason Elam — 6 doinks in 78 games, 33% made, doink rate 0.077/gameSteven Hauschka — 6 doinks in 171 games, 33% made, doink rate 0.035/gameKa'imi Fairbairn — 5 doinks in 143 games, 20% made, doink rate 0.035/gameRobbie Gould — 5 doinks in 281 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.018/gameEddy Pineiro — 5 doinks in 86 games, 40% made, doink rate 0.058/gamePhil Dawson — 5 doinks in 211 games, 40% made, doink rate 0.024/gameChandler Catanzaro — 5 doinks in 79 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.063/gameEvan McPherson — 5 doinks in 84 games, 40% made, doink rate 0.060/gameJason Myers — 5 doinks in 177 games, 20% made, doink rate 0.028/gameRiley Patterson — 4 doinks in 62 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.065/gameJay Feely — 4 doinks in 149 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.027/gameJohn Kasay — 4 doinks in 118 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.034/gameRyan Longwell — 4 doinks in 115 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.035/gameNeil Rackers — 4 doinks in 117 games, 25% made, doink rate 0.034/gameBrett Maher — 4 doinks in 66 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.061/gameBrandon Aubrey — 4 doinks in 52 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.077/gameCaleb Sturgis — 4 doinks in 67 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.060/gameMatthew Wright — 4 doinks in 32 games, 75% made, doink rate 0.125/gameJake Moody — 4 doinks in 42 games, 25% made, doink rate 0.095/gameShaun Suisham — 4 doinks in 134 games, 0% made, doink rate 0.030/gameRob Bironas — 0 doinks in 142 gamesM. CrosbyN. FolkS. JanikowskiC. SantosC. BoswellM. PraterG. ZuerleinM. GayC. McLaughlinH. ButkerA. VinatieriR. SuccopJ. TuckerD. BaileyR. BlankenshipR. GouldM. WrightR. Bironas
58 kickers · 439 total doinks · 19% made overall
Cartesian plot of 58 NFL kickers with 4+ career doinks across 2+ seasons (plus zero-doink kickers shown as hollow dots) (field goals only), positioned by doinks per game played (X-axis) and made-doink conversion rate (Y-axis). Quadrants split at a 0.0625 doink rate (~1 doink per 16-game season) and 30% made rate. Triangles indicate kickers beyond the chart bounds (below 0.02 or above 0.105 doink rate, or above 60% made rate). Dot opacity reflects games played within the period (more solid = longer tenure). Coverage: 2005–2025.