Tribute to Jason Hanson

Jason Hanson seems to supply an inordinate amount of the points that the Lions score. So, I looked it up. Hanson has supplied 32.4% of all Lions points since his rookie season in 1992. The league average from kickers during this time is 30.6%. That doesn't seem like a big difference but the team with the most points coming from their kicker during this time, Pittsburgh, is only slightly ahead of Detroit at 33.7% Out of the 393 individual team seasons since 1992, Hanson has the fourth highest single season percentage. This happened in 1993 when Hanson was responsible for an unbelievable 44% of Detroit's points leading the Lions to the playoffs despite ranking 16th in the league in offense and 15th in the league in defense.

Since 1998, Hanson has supplied 33.7% of all Lions points. The league average during this time is 30.0%. Only Baltimore and Pittsburgh have had a higher percentage of points come from their kicker since 1998. Aside from Baltimore and Pittsburgh, the best teams generally have the lowest percentage of their points come from their kicker and vice versa. This is expected since the better teams generally score more touchdowns meaning a lower percentage of overall points coming from the kicker. Baltimore and Pittsburgh have good defenses which is why they've managed to be successful despite such a high percentage of overall points coming from their kicker. The Lions, on the other hand, have only ranked in the top 10 in defense in one of Hanson's 13 seasons. They've also ranked 16th or worse in offense in every season but three. Since Hanson has contributed such a high percentage of Detroit's overall points and the Lions have not had good defenses or good offenses, you'd think that the Lions have been awful since Hanson arrived in 1992. However, Detroit has finished with a .500 or better record in six of 13 seasons with Hanson at kicker. What does this mean? I don't know. If the offense has been bad and the defense has been bad yet the Lions have finished at .500 or better in almost half of Hanson's career, maybe that means Hanson has been awesome. Nonetheless, I don't know why anyone in their right mind would willingly play 13 seasons for the Detroit Lions but Hanson has clearly been the team MVP over this time. I might have just talked myself into buying a Jason Hanson jersey.

I just want to point something out that's remarkable. The worst single season by far since 1992 in terms of percentage of points coming from a kicker is the 1993 Indianapolis Colts. The Colts received an amazing 49% of their points from their kicker (Dean Biasucci). Just to give you an idea of how ridiculous this was; the second worst of all teams since 1992 is the 1993 Cincinnati Bengals at 45%. There are a handful of seasons at 44%. Nobody is even remotely close to the 1993 Colts. Steve Young had the highest percentage of non-kickers in 1993 at 39%. Biasucci's 1993 season also has to rate as one of the single greatest seasons (at least in terms of contributions to the team’s total points) in NFL history. Dan Marino in 1984 and Peyton Manning in 2004 contributed 56% of their teams points which are probably the two highest seasons ever. I would bet that Biasucci ranks in the top five all time for a single season contribution. I think it's time that Biasucci be recognized for his spectacular contributions. There's no telling how bad the Colts would've been in '93 if it weren't for Biasucci single handedly pulling them through the mud week in and week out. Additionally, in an attempt to find a picture of Biasucci on the internet, I came across his profile on imdb.com. Yep, he's also an actor. By my count, this means Biasucci should be recognized as the 1993 NFL MVP and the best actor/kicker in NFL history.