Placekicker, or simply kicker (PK or K), is the title of the player in American

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 and Canadian football

Canadian football

Canadian football is a form of gridiron football played exclusively in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete for territorial control of a field of play long and wide attempting to advance a pointed prolate spheroid ball into the opposing team's scoring area...

 who is responsible for the kicking duties of field goal

Field goal (football)

A field goal in American football and Canadian football is a goal that may be scored during general play . Field goals may be scored by a placekick or the now practically extinct drop kick.The drop kick fell out of favor in 1934 when the shape of the ball was changed...

s, extra point

Extra Point

Extra Point is a twice-daily, two-minute segment on ESPN Radio that covers generic sports-related topical news and opinion. The AM edition airs Monday through Saturday at various times between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. ET, and the PM edition airs Monday through Friday between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. ET...

s. In many cases, the placekicker also serves as the team's kickoff specialist

Kickoff specialist

A kickoff specialist is a seldom-used position in American and Canadian football. Kickoff specialists are members of the special teams. They are responsible to kick the ball in the kickoff...

 (KOS) or, more rarely, punter (P), as well.

Specialized role of kicker (vs punter)

The kicker initially was not a specialized role. Until the 1960s, the kicker was almost always doubled at another position on the roster, George Blanda

George Blanda

George Frederick Blanda was a collegiate and professional football quarterback and placekicker...

, Frank Gifford

Frank Gifford

Francis Newton "Frank" Gifford is a Hall of Fame former American football player and American sportscaster.-Early life:Gifford was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Lola Mae and Weldon Gifford, an oil driller....

 and Paul Hornung

Paul Hornung

Paul Vernon Hornung is a retired Hall of Fame professional football player who played for the Green Bay Packers from 1957-66...

 being some of the more prominent examples of players who were stars at other positions as well as being known for their kicking abilities. As the era of "two-way" players gave way to increased specialization, teams would employ a specialist at the punter or kicker position. Because of the difference in techniques needed, to avoid leg fatigue, and to reduce the risk of injury, on the professional level most teams employ separate players to handle the jobs. The placekicker usually will only punt

Punt (football)

In some codes of football, a punt is a play in which a player drops the ball and kicks it before it touches the ground. A punt is in contrast to a drop kick, in which the ball touches the ground before being kicked....

 when the punter

Punter (football position)

A punter in American or Canadian football is a special teams player who receives the snapped ball directly from the line of scrimmage and then punts the football to the opposing team so as to limit any field position advantage. This generally happens on a fourth down in American football and a...

 is injured, and vice-versa. (One player often handles both jobs in the Canadian Football League

Canadian Football League

The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....

, which has smaller active rosters than in the NFL.) A professional team will occasionally even have a "kickoff specialist" who handles only the kickoffs and serves as a backup to the kicker who handles field goals and extra points. This is typically done to further protect a premier point-scoring kicker from injury or if he, while accurate, does not have sufficient distance on kickoffs.

Amateur teams (e.g., college or high school) often do not differentiate between placekickers and punters, have different players assume different placekicking duties (for example, one person handles kicking off, another kicks long field goals, and another kicks from shorter distances), or have regular position players handle kicking duties. The last option is quite common on high school teams, when the best athletes are often the best kickers. Before the modern era of pro football, this was also the case for professional teams, particularly when most placekicks were still made in the "straight on" style outlined below.

Salary and team standing

Placekickers and punters are often the lowest paid starters on professional teams, although proven placekickers sometimes earn over $1 million per year in salary.

In addition, kickers are at times ostracized by other players due to the perceived non-physical and limited nature of their duties, as well as the fact they often are allowed to leave practice before the rest of the team. It is not uncommon for a placekicker to be one of the smallest members of their team. The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

in 2011 wrote that NFL kickers had adopted year-round weight training and strict diets. Sebastian Janikowski

Sebastian Janikowski

Sebastian Janikowski is a left-footed Polish placekicker who plays for the National Football League's Oakland Raiders. He is nicknamed The Polish Cannon because he is considered to have one of the strongest kicking legs in the league, and leads the NFL in kickoffs for touchbacks. He lives in...

 that year was a 6 in 2 in (1.88 m) and 250 pounds (113.4 kg) kicker. Kicker Rob Bironas

Rob Bironas

James Robert Douglas "Rob" Bironas is an American football placekicker for the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League. He was signed by the Green Bay Packers as an undrafted free agent in 2002. He played college football at Auburn University and Georgia Southern.Bironas was an All-Pro...

, who is 6 feet (1.8 m) and 205 pounds (93 kg)), noted, "I might be bigger than some wide receivers and cornerbacks."

The presence of foreign born-and-raised players in the highest levels of gridiron football has largely been limited to placekickers—occasionally even coming from outside the traditional American high school

High school football

High school football, in North America, refers to the game of football as it is played in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both of these nations....

 and/or college football

College football

College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...

 systems—and three of the four women to have played men's American football were placekickers while the fourth was a placekick holder

Holder (American football)

In American football the holder is the player who receives the snap during field goal and extra point attempts made by place kick. The holder is usually positioned between seven and eight yards behind the line of scrimmage. The holder kneels down and places the hand farthest from the line of...

. These anecdotes increase the perception of the placekicker as an outsider.

Nevertheless, due to their duties in kicking both field goals and extra points placekickers are usually responsible for scoring more points than any other player on a team. The top 25 players in NFL history in career scoring are all placekickers.

Janikowski of the Oakland Raiders

Oakland Raiders

The Oakland Raiders are a professional American football team based in Oakland, California. They currently play in the Western Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

, is the NFL's highest paid kicker.

Kicking style

Placekickers today are almost all "soccer

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

-style" kickers, approaching the ball from several steps to the left of it [for a right-footed kicker] and several steps behind and striking the ball with the instep of the foot. Before this method of kicking was popularized in the 1960s by Pete Gogolak

Pete Gogolak

Peter Kornel Gogolak is a retired American football placekicker in the National Football League for the New York Giants and in the American Football League for the Buffalo Bills. He is widely considered the chief figure behind the game's adoption of soccer style placekicking...

 and his younger brother Charlie

Charlie Gogolak

Charles Paul Gogolak is a retired American football placekicker....

 (the first placekicker to be drafted in the first round), every place kicker was a "straight on" kicker, a style that requires the use of a special shoe that is extremely rigid and has a flattened and slightly upturned toe. http://www.wizardkicking.com/images/ACF2C08.jpg In the straight on style (also known as "straight-toe" style), the kicker approaches the ball from directly behind, rather than from the side, and strikes the ball with the toe. Straight on kickers are relatively uncommon in college football (due to the control and power disadvantages, along with soccer becoming more popular), but a very small percentage of high school football players still kick straight-toe. The last full-time straight on placekicker in the NFL was Mark Moseley

Mark Moseley

Mark DeWayne Moseley is a former professional American football placekicker in the National Football League who played for the Philadelphia Eagles , the Houston Oilers , the Washington Redskins , and the Cleveland Browns . He won the Most Valuable Player Award during the strike-shortened 1982 season...

 who retired from the Cleveland Browns

Cleveland Browns

The Cleveland Browns are a professional football team based in Cleveland, Ohio. They are currently members of the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...

 after the 1986 season; Dirk Borgognone

Dirk Borgognone

Dirk Ronald Borgognone is a retired former National Football League placekicker who currently holds the record for the longest field goal ever kicked in the history of high school football, 68 yards....

, who set records with the straight toe in high school, tried but failed to make several NFL teams in the early 1990s.

Shoes

Placekickers in the modern game usually wear specialized shoes (soccer boots), but in very rare circumstances some prefer to kick barefoot

Barefoot

Barefoot is the state of not wearing any footwear. Being barefoot is regarded as a human's natural state, though for functional, fashion and social reasons footwear is worn, at least on some occasions...

. Tony Franklin was one such kicker, who played in Super Bowl

Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League , the highest level of professional American football in the United States, culminating a season that begins in the late summer of the previous calendar year. The Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to identify each game, rather...

s for the Philadelphia Eagles

Philadelphia Eagles

The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...

 and New England Patriots

New England Patriots

The New England Patriots, commonly called the "Pats", are a professional football team based in the Greater Boston area, playing their home games in the town of Foxborough, Massachusetts at Gillette Stadium. The team is part of the East Division of the American Football Conference in the National...

. Another was Rich Karlis

Rich Karlis

Richard John Karlis is a former American Football placekicker who played nine seasons for the Denver Broncos, the Minnesota Vikings, and the Detroit Lions in the National Football League from 1982 to 1990...

, who once shared the record for longest field goal in Super Bowl history (kicking a 47-yard field goal in Super Bowl XXI

Super Bowl XXI

Super Bowl XXI was an American football game played on January 25, 1987 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California to decide the National Football League champion following the 1986 regular season. The National Football Conference champion New York Giants won their first Super Bowl by defeating...

) and for the most field goals in a game (seven for Minnesota in 1989, tying Jim Bakken

Jim Bakken

James LeRoy Bakken is a former American football punter and placekicker for the St. Louis Cardinals. He was a four-time Pro Bowl selection, and was named by the voters of the Pro Football Hall of Fame to the Professional Football 1960s All Decade Team, which included both NFL and American...

's record of the time), a record since broken by Rob Bironas

Rob Bironas

James Robert Douglas "Rob" Bironas is an American football placekicker for the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League. He was signed by the Green Bay Packers as an undrafted free agent in 2002. He played college football at Auburn University and Georgia Southern.Bironas was an All-Pro...

. More recently, Englishman

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 Rob Hart

Rob Hart

Rob Hart is an English American football player who played as a placekicker for NFL Europe's England Monarchs in 1998 and Scottish Claymores from 1999-2004 after college experience at Murray State University in Kentucky...

 kicked barefoot during his 7-year NFL Europe career. John Baker

John Baker

-Military figures:*John Baker , American Revolutionary War hero, for whom Baker County, Georgia was named*John Baker , British air marshal*John Drayton Baker , United States Navy officer...

 also used the style in the 1990s in the Canadian Football League

Canadian Football League

The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....

, as did José Cortéz in the XFL

XFL

The XFL was a professional American football league that played for one season in 2001. The league was founded by Vince McMahon, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of WWE...

.

Barefoot kickers are banned in the vast majority of high school games, due to a rule by the National Federation of State High School Associations

National Federation of State High School Associations

The National Federation of State High School Associations is the body that writes the rules of competition for most high school sports and activities in the United States. Most high schools, whether public or private, belong to their state's high school association; in turn, each state association...

, which requires all players to wear shoes. Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 and Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 play by NCAA rules, and therefore barefoot kickers are legal in those two states.

Kicking stance

Mostly all soccer-style kickers share a similar approach to the ball: knees bent, leaning forward at the waist, taking three steps, and then proceeding to kick the ball. Examples of unusual approaches include Paul Edinger

Paul Edinger

Paul Edinger is a gridiron football placekicker, who is currently a Free Agent of the Arena Football League. He was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft...

, who stood backwards, and spun around 180 degrees to kick the ball, and Donald Igwebuike

Donald Igwebuike

Donald Amechi Igwebuike is a former Nigerian kicker of American football for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers . He is the fourth place all-time scorer for the Buccaneers with 416 overall points...

, who played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football franchise based in Tampa, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the Southern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League – they are the only team in the division not to come from the old NFC West...

, took a step backwards before approaching the ball.