I’m curious as well, so I’m moving this to the front page.

Some kickers seem to slice it. I’d guess that it depends on if you’re left-footed or right-footed too.

Maybe we can get Joe Nedney on to answer that questions for us . . .

we did that a couple times. i think it does help the kicker because you don’t have to angle it as much

LACES OUT, MARINO!

From 50 yards out and at an angle it would narrow the width of the goal post. Someone that is good at geometry could probably answer that better but take your remote control, hold it straight at you, the turn it a little and see how much thinner it is. I think it changes how wide the goal posts are. So for example, straight on, its 15 yards wide, at an angle from 50 yds out, maybe its 14 yards wide?

So when it slices back it goes to the middle.

Even if you kick the ball and it has a curve to it (generally right to left for righties, left to right for lefties) the ball will still be straight where you aimed it.

Also the way the football is shaped, they don’t really curve as much as a soccer ball does. The end over end rotation helps to keep it straight, so even a soccer style kicker generally doesn’t get very much of a bend when they kick the ball right on the sweet spot.

For reference, I’ve played soccer since I was 6 and was part time kicker on the football team in high school. It’s a much different kicking style.

From that far out, you almost have to kick from the middle. Some teams will go to either hash depending on wind and such sometimes, but in a dome like tonight, from that far out, you almost have to kick it from the middle. It give you a larger target, and keeps the kick shorter.

i’ve played golf since i was a kid and taught it at UF during grad school…

from what i understand, the soccer style football kick is very similar to the golf swing in terms of physics. basically, in both, your distance comes from the amount of power you store in your hip coil during the backswing, and your trajectory comes from the plane your club/leg follows immediately preceding and following impact. given that the best golfers end up with a natural draw (i.e., a shot that curves slightly to the left or righties or sligthly to the right for lefties), I’d imagine that the same thing applies to the best kickers. i’m confident in this because (a) the same things that produce a bad slice in golf (i.e., deceleration in the downswing coupled with an outside-in swing plane) produce the dreaded wide-right shank in FG-kicking, and (b) the same things that produce a duck hook in golf (i.e., overacceleration in the downswing coupled with an inside-out swing plane) produce a duck hook in FG-kicking.

so my guess is that most really good kickers have a nartural draw on their kicks, and that kicking from the dominant-leg hashmark is probably a bit easier than from the opposite hashmark. however, given what people before me have said about (a) the geometry of the kicking angle, and (b) the non-spherical shape of a football, i’m pretty much concluding that the best spot isn’t the right or left hash, but a spot slightly to the right or left of center based on how much the distance affects narrowing of the goalposts for geometric reasons.

 from that far out does it really matter if it is centered or not? this isnt college where the hashes are so wide that it severely alters the kick being on a hash. why not just run a play and possibly get a lot closer?

I always liked the ball placed at the left of center which would allow me to start it at the right upright with a slight draw. (hook to the left). That’s because I kicked with my right foot. You always have to take other factors into account as well. Wind direction, moisture in the air, etc. They all affect the flight of the ball. Dead straight is not the easiest.

To explain, if you aim at the center, you have half the distance between the uprights as your room for error in each direction. If you are a hooker, you aim at the right upright and with your natural hook, you have the entire distance between the uprights as your room for error.

The golf analogy was a good one but a bit too technical. I also played as a kid, started at 6, and played professionally until my late 50’s. Kicking is much easier.

Pro is a much more narrow hashmark, but as a right footed kicker I tended to like it a little to the left.

Before I get to the alternatives, a quick intermission about the actual centering of the ball. I apologize for breaking out the trigonometry on you. Centering the ball matters the most when you are closer to the goal posts, and it matters more in college where the hash marks are farther than six yards apart. It might make sense in some small marginal way if you are going to kick the game winning kick inside the 10. But it simply cannot matter at the distance for this kick. If you want to think of it like a triangle, with one point being the hashmark, one being the center of the field at the same yard marker, and the final point being the point on the ground directly below the upright meeting the crossbar, then we can see this is so. The distance (three yards) from the hashmark to the center is the base of the triangle, and from the center point to the crossbar/upright is the length. As the length of the kick decreases, the angle increases. In this case, a 3 yard base and a 49 yard length results in a 3.5 degree angle change on the kick. I’m inclined to say no effect, but convince me otherwise.

Here’s a link to the rest of the article
Coaching Scared