"Football Freakonomics": Why Even Ice a Kicker?

The following is a cross-post from NFL.com, where we’ve recently launched a Football Freakonomics Project.

Icing the kicker: Even casual football fans have come to expect that when a game is on the line and the kicker is brought out to try a crucial field goal, the opposing coach might call a timeout just as the kicker approaches the ball.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? The coach can “ice” the kicker — mess with his mind, throw off his routine, make him stand around like an awkward guy at a cocktail party for all the world to see.

But does it work?

The short answer: No. In their book Scorecasting, Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim marshal the most compelling evidence to date on the subject, analyzing “pressure” kicks from 2001 through 2009 while controlling for distance of the field-goal attempt. They found that icing the kicker certainly doesn’t produce the desired effect, and in some cases might even backfire. The one situation in which icing might confer a slim advantage: When there are fewer than 15 seconds left in the game. Here’s their data:

Field goal success whether opponent calls a timeout or not
(Percentage of kicks made)
All kicks
Not iced
Less than two minuntes left in fourth quarter or OT 76.2% 74.2% 77.6%
Less than one minunte left in fourth quarter or OT 75.5% 74.3% 76.4%
Less than 30 seconds left in fourth quarter or OT 76.5% 76.0% 76.9%
Less than 15 seconds left in fourth quarter or OT 76.4% 77.5% 75.4%


Moskowitz and Wertheim also looked for the icing effect in “pressure” free throws in NBA games, and similarly found that icing made no difference. Interestingly, NBA players make about 76 percent of their “pressure” foul shots — the same percentage as pressure field goals in the NFL.

So if icing doesn’t really work, why do we still see so much of it?

Here are a few theories. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

» It has become tradition — and, as Tevye taught us, tradition doesn’t get broken easily.

» Coaches are a generally risk-averse group, and find it’s easier to parrot an accepted strategy — even if it’s worthless — than explain why they deviated from accepted tradition.

» Even in the NFL, where coaches arguably have more influence on their teams than other sports, they don’t really get to do all that much during a game. Running up to the sideline official at the crucial point in a game and frantically making a T with your hands is an acceptable and laudable form of intervention. Good TV, too.

» Since it’s been around for a while now, the novelty effect of icing has worn off; while it may have messed with the minds of the first few kickers it was tried on, once the surprise element has worn off, it no longer harms the kicker and perhaps even helps by giving him more time to set up, assess the wind, etc.

» Icing confirms how the football universe views the kicker — as a lesser being, not a real athlete, a man (barely!) whose fragile psyche is susceptible to bruising. Think about it: When’s the last time you saw a coach try to ice an opposing quarterback?


Most of the time the pressure field goals are in the final seconds of the game-- if the field goal is made the game will be over. The coach has no real options if the field goal is made... so he might as well use the rest of his timeouts trying to make a kicker think about the kick.

It would be interesting to compare this statistic between NFL and college football. I would think the strategy would be more successful in college where you are dealing with 18-21 year old kids that haven't been in many of these kinds of situations in front of thousands of fans... whereas, in the NFL, the kickers are "battle hardened" kickers who are used to the situations and can keep themselves in the right mental frame of mind during timeouts before kicking the field goal.

Ben M. Schorr

I may be missing something but the data in your table seems to reflect the opposite of the text in your article. It looks like the kickers are MORE accurate iced with less than 15 seconds than they are not iced and LESS accurate iced in the other three scenarios.

Or am I misreading something?


Thank you for asking, I came down to the comments section just to see how I was reading this wrong!


To expound on your thought, it appears that the bigger the data set, the more pronounced the difference.

<2 min = 3.4% worse when iced
<1 min = 2.1% worse when iced
<30 sec = 0.9% worse when iced
<15 sec = 2.1% BETTER when iced

Since each is a sub-set of the previous, the <2 min data set is presumably the largest. 3.4% would seem more than statistical noise to me.

The data set covers 8 seasons,with 32 teams at 16 games a season, that's 4096 regular season games. If only 10% of games involve a potential game tying/winning kick in the final two minutes, that's over 400 games. Quite the data set.

Greg W.

I agree with Ben.
The table clearly shows a small (1-2.4%) decrease in field goal success when the kicker is iced except when there is less than 15 seconds left in which case the field goal success goes up when the kicker is iced.

So is the author's argument that those differences are not statistically valid, or what?
It seems there is something missing.


I think the real point is that there is almost no opportunity cost generally for doing so. When coaches ice the opposing kicker it happens at times when they would have no further opportunity to use those time-outs. If they had the opportunity to use the time-out earlier and didn't, that was where the mistake was, but if there is less than 30 seconds left in the half and you have a time-out left there isn't really an opportunity cost.


The cost of the using the timeout at the end of the game is nothing. Since having timeouts at the end of the game will buy you nothing, why not use this if there's even a slight slight chance of icing the kicker.


Because the possibility exists that with more time to assess the kick, as the author states, the kickers may have a HIGHER rate of success.


Icing the kicker should be looking at each individual kicker's statistics when being iced. It may have a big effect on certain kickers while not having any effect on others.


You guys should look into Home-Away Uniform colors and there effects on W-L. I've read that teams in all black come across as more intimidating and therefore some subjective calls (pass interference, unnecessary roughness, etc.) are interpreted as such by officiating. Football seems to be the only sport where the Home team prefers to wear dark and the away team wears a lighter color.


Isn't some of the mental pressure on a kicker also cause by the spread of the game? Did the study look at that a a factor and how it plays into icing?

[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us '0 which is not a hashcash value.


that's a good point, but if it's not a close game then they won't kick a field goal. this may be relevant in the 2-min range, but other than that teams will only kick a field goal when they need to for the win. otherwise they would just try to run out the clock.


1. “Football Freakonomics”: Icing the Kicker
2. “Football Freakonomics”: Why Even Ice the Kicker?

... really ?

For me, as an non-American , it's like trying to demonstrate cheating among sumo wrestler and findout out they don't cheat... TWICE !


For me as an American, too.

Caleb b

I like the idea of pretending to like you are going to ice the kicker, but then not actually doing it. The kicker says, "eh, they're just going to ice me, so no need to get ready right now." then when you don't, the kicker is surprised and misses.

Ben K

That's a factor too -- before you call timeout, there's uncertainty. Once you call timeout, the kicker knows when he will kick.


Does it work better in low temperatures when you make the kicker stand there and get cold. You know, when you actually ice them.


Couple of comments:

1. Ben's post having a 43 to 1 thumbs up ratio revives my faith in that feature.

2. The other comment about studying each kicker's icing history also makes sense.

3. It has to be considered that in some situations, the other team having 1:59 seconds left will not be a place to "blow" a time-out if they can still attempt a rally, even if the field goal puts them two scores down. I am sure hundreds of NFL games have seen two-score rallies with less than two minutes to go. So, some of those decisions to "not ice" made not have really been decisions.

4. The other scenario that has to be considered is that sometimes the play clock, or even the game clock, is running as the team is setting up to kick. It may be that the stress of that would also make it a bad decision to "ice".

In other words, I think to really get the data, the kick has to be an end of the quarter or end of the game (or literal end of the game, like putting the team up two scores with less than 10 seconds or so.)



Well, I think it maybe a psychological thing. People enjoy watching the last few seconds of any sport where the score is close. I, myself, can only watch basketball after the clock goes 1:59 in the 4th, that is when I become a huge fan. We enjoy the feeling we get, the suspense to find out what is going to happen. Unlike daunting tasks where we can't wait for them to be over, in sporting events and events that bring us entertainment, we don't want them to end: We like to delay the inevitable. That is why the practice of "icing" has stayed in effect despite it not actually working. The practice hasn't met any objection from fans and has simply become a mindless tradition.

As for the coaches, that's easy... Why not call the TO? You have nothing to lose, and may even think of some brilliant scheme in the extra 45 seconds you bought your team. Your players might be able to "pysch" out the kicker or offensive line. Who knows? You still have everything to gain and nothing to lose.



Another point to remember. . . Particularly in recent years, the kicking team will snap the ball after the timeout has been called to give the kicker a practice kick identical to the real thing. You need to find the statistics for these situations. You'd have to think conversion would be higher.