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Week 4 kicking woes might not be as bad as they seem

Sunday's slate of NFL games offered so many missed kicks it felt like the errant boots could have been their own Red Zone channel.

While the prevailing notion was that we haven't seen a kicking week this poor in a long time, that's a bit overstating it.

NFL Media Research notes that the 18 missed field goals and extra points combined in Week 4 (through Sunday night) is just the second-most since 2010:

Most FG/XPA Missed in a Week since 2010:
Week 10, 2011: 20 combined misses on 57/76 FGs and 64/65 extra points
Week 4, 2015: 18 combined misses; 57/71 and 57/61
Week 2, 2013: 17 misses; 56/73; 68/68
Week 12, 2012: 17 misses; 48/64; 81/82
Week 9, 2012: 17; 45/61; 67/68
Week 16, 2011: 16; 57/72; 72/73
Week 10, 2010: 16; 46/60; 73/75

The longer extra point is clearly adding difficulty, with four 33-yard misses accounting for 22 percent of the 18 kicks missed this week.

But from Josh Scobee's errant leg Thursday, to Jaguars kicker Jason Myers' two misses, to Saints' Zach Hocker banging the upright to force overtime Sunday night, it felt like a field goal was missed every time you turned around.

That narrative is a bit heightened in a "prisoner of the moment" sense.

The 14 missed field-goal attempts in Week 4 (57 of 71; 80.3 percent) is tied for just the eighth-most in any week since 2010. In fact, we saw more missed field goals in Week 16 of last season.

Most Missed FGs in a Week since 2010:
Week 10, 2011: 19 misses
Week 2, 2013: 17 misses
Week 12, 2012: 16
Week 9: 2012: 16
Week 16, 2014: 15
Week 17, 2012: 15
Week 16, 2011: 15
Week 4, 2015: 14
Week 10, 2010: 14
Week 3, 2010: 14

Note that the majority of those weeks came later in the season, when kicking becomes more exponentially difficult in outdoor, cold weather stadiums.

Leaguewide, kickers are 198 of 237 on field goal attempts this season (83.5 percent). If that percentage holds it would be lowest field goal percentage since 2011 (82.9 percent).

What really is hurting kickers is the longer extra point -- someone in the league office is smirking reading that. Kickers are just 283 of 300 on extra points (94.3 percent), which would be the lowest since 1982 (93.8 percent) and lowest in a non-strike shortened season since 1980 (94.0).

While the kicker chaos is rampant and we'll likely have multiple tryouts for jobs this week, it could be worse.

Much worse:

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