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How Akers stacks up


As you can see, Akers has been better than his career average the past two seasons on kicks of 40 yards or more. After a down period from 2005-2007 where he made just 14 of 29 attempts (48.3 percent), he's rebounded nicely.

The other aspect to look at is kickoffs. And in his 11th season as the Eagles' full-time kicker, Akers kicked more touchbacks than ever before. He had touchbacks on 24 percent of his kickoffs, eighth-best in the NFL.

Here's a chart of Akers' touchback percentages over the course of his career:


According to Football Outsiders, the Eagles' kickoff units ranked seventh in the NFL.

And finally, we have to look at Akers' playoff performance. You obviously know that Akers missed two field goals in the Eagles' loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers. You probably also know that he was dealing with a family crisis at the time (as detailed in this column by Ashley Fox).

But overall, Akers' playoff numbers are almost identical to his regular-season numbers. In the regular season, he's hit on 81.9 percent of his field-goal attempts. In the playoffs, he's 31 for 38 (81.6 percent). Prior to the Packers' game, he had hit 18 of his previous 19 attempts in the postseason.

The bottom line is, statistically, he's probably not one of the best kickers in the NFL, but he's very good and is not showing signs of slowing down.

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