Field Goal Kicking Percentage Calculator
Field Goal Kicking Percentage Calculator (American Football)
Field goal percentage for an American football kicker — kicks made over kicks attempted, split at fifty yards, with the shorter attempts worked out for you. A field goal here is a three-point kick through the uprights, which is not what the phrase means in basketball.
Field goal percentage, long and short
Made over attempted27 field goals made from 32 attempted, of which 5 made from 8 attempted at 50 yards or beyond
Made over attempted, three times over
Long % = made from 50+ ÷ attempted from 50+ × 100
Short % = (made − made from 50+) ÷ (attempted − attempted from 50+) × 100
- what counts as a field goal
- under NFL Rule 11, Section 4, Article 1 a place kick or drop kick “made by the offense” from ordinary play, passing between the uprights and over the crossbar; Rule 11, Section 1, Article 2 values it at “Field Goal: 3 points”
- why the try after a touchdown is excluded
- it is a different score under a different rule, one point from a set spot, and is counted separately in every source read here. Since 2015 the NFL’s try-kick is taken 15 yards out rather than two, about a 33-yard kick where it had been 20, so extra-point percentages before and after 2015 are not comparable
- the fifty-yard split is this page’s convention
- not a rule. Nothing read here shows a governing body publishing distance bands at all; the splits broadcasters and statistics sites use are their own
- small denominators, and what they do
- eight attempts from beyond fifty gives a percentage moving in steps of 12.5, and three attempts steps of 33.3. The long attempt count is printed beside the percentage so the step size is visible
Worked example
27 field goals made from 32 attempted, of which 5 made from 8 attempted at 50 yards or beyond
Overall: 27 ÷ 32 × 100 = 84.4%
From 50 or beyond: 5 ÷ 8 × 100 = 62.5%
From inside 50, by subtraction: 27 − 5 = 22 made from 32 − 8 = 24 attempted, so 22 ÷ 24 × 100 = 91.7%
Five kicks were missed, and 18.5% of the makes came from fifty or beyond
Each of the three is a rate. Double every count — 54 of 64, with 10 of 16 long — and all three percentages are identical. Halve the attempts without halving the makes and the percentage doubles, which is what a rate does and a count does not
And each impossible line is refused separately. 33 made from 32 attempted; 9 long attempts out of 8; 6 long makes from 5 long attempts; 6 long makes when only 5 kicks were made at all; and 30 made with 8 long attempts and no long makes, which needs 30 short makes from 24 short attempts
Two field goals, one name, no shared arithmetic
| American football | Basketball | |
|---|---|---|
| What a field goal is | a place kick or drop kick through the uprights from ordinary play | any shot taken from play, two-point or three-point, as opposed to a free throw |
| What it is worth | 3 points, NFL Rule 11-1-2 | 2 or 3 points depending on where it was taken from |
| Who takes it | the kicker, once or twice in a game | every player on the floor, dozens of times |
| Field goal percentage is | kicks made ÷ kicks attempted | shots made ÷ shots attempted |
| A strong season looks like | the mid eighties | the forties or fifties |
| Where to read about it here | this page | effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage |
The kick and the target, by rule
| The rule | Read from | |
|---|---|---|
| Worth three points, and must be a place kick or drop kick from play | NFL Rule 11-1-2, “Field Goal: 3 points”; Rule 11-4-1, “made by the offense” | the league’s own video-rulebook summaries |
| The target | a crossbar “18 feet, 6 inches in length, the top face of which is 10 feet above the ground”, uprights extending 35 feet above it | the NFL’s own 2020 rulebook PDF, Rule 1 |
| The try-kick after a touchdown is NOT a field goal | one point, from 15 yards out since 2015 — about a 33-yard kick, where it had been 20; the college and high school line of scrimmage is still the three-yard line | NFL Rule 11-3-1 for the spot, a secondary account for the 2015 change and for the other two codes |
Which field goal this is, and what the percentage can bear
A field goal is not the same thing in American football as it is in basketball, and the percentage named after it measures something else entirely. Here a field goal is a place kick or drop kick sent between the uprights from ordinary play, worth three points under Rule 11, Section 4 of the NFL’s rules; the percentage is kicks made over kicks attempted and a good season is in the eighties. In basketball a field goal is any shot from play as opposed to a free throw; the percentage is shots made over shots attempted and a good season is in the forties or fifties. If you came looking for basketball, the pages you want are effective field goal percentage, which prices a made three at one and a half twos, and true shooting percentage, which folds free throws back in. One counts kicks through a goal and the other shots through a hoop, so a figure from either is meaningless beside the other.
With that out of the way, the arithmetic is the simplest on this site: kicks made over kicks attempted. What makes the page worth having is the split. A kicker’s overall percentage mixes attempts that almost never miss with attempts close to a coin toss, and the mixture moves with how often the coach sends him out from distance rather than with how well he kicks. So the page takes the long attempts separately, derives the shorter range by subtraction, and prints all three.
The fifty-yard split is this page’s choice and not a rule. Nothing read for it shows any governing body publishing distance bands for field goals; the bands broadcasters and statistics sites use are their own. The arithmetic does not care, so enter whatever distance you want to treat as long — and name it when you quote the answer, because a long-range percentage without its threshold is not a number anybody can check.
Watch the denominator. A kicker may attempt fewer than ten from beyond fifty in a season. On eight attempts the percentage moves in steps of 12.5 points, so one kick separates 62.5 from 75.0; on three attempts a single kick moves it by 33.3. The page prints the long attempt count beside the long percentage for that reason, and nothing here can tell you whether a gap between two kickers’ long-range figures is a difference in kicking.
The kick itself is the best-specified thing on the page, and it is specified by the league rather than by convention: NFL Rule 11, Section 4, Article 1 for the place kick or drop kick from ordinary play, Rule 11, Section 1, Article 2 for the three points, and Rule 1 for the target — a crossbar eighteen feet six inches long whose top face is ten feet above the ground.
The try after a touchdown is not in this percentage, and the reason is a rule change worth knowing about. A try-kick is worth one point under a separate rule and is counted separately everywhere. Since 2015 the NFL has spotted it fifteen yards from the defence’s goal line rather than two, turning roughly a twenty-yard kick into roughly a thirty-three-yard one — so extra-point percentages from before and after 2015 are not comparable, and the change is why teams go for two more often than they did. College and high school football never moved it: there the try’s line of scrimmage is still the three-yard line, so the percentages are not comparable between codes either. The point values and who may score on a try are on the scoring and two-point interpreter.
A rule here belongs to a code, in a season. American football is governed separately by the National Football League, by the NCAA for college football and by the National Federation of State High School Associations for most United States high school play — and state associations modify the NFHS rules on top of that, so “high school” is not one rulebook either. The rules on this page are no exception: the NFL moved the kick after a touchdown thirteen yards backwards in 2015, and the college and high school spot never moved at all. So every number here is printed with the body that publishes it and the document it was read from, and where this page could not read a code’s own rules book it says so rather than filling the gap from another code’s.
Every figure here is arithmetic on counts a league or a statistics provider publishes. This page produces no commercial prediction of any kind, and no page in this section does.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate field goal percentage in American football?
Kicks made divided by kicks attempted, multiplied by a hundred. 27 made from 32 attempted is 84.4 per cent. The try after a touchdown is a different score under a different rule and is not included in it.
Is field goal percentage the same as in basketball?
No. The two share a name and a made-over-attempted shape and measure different events. In American football a field goal is a three-point kick through the uprights and a strong season is in the mid eighties; in basketball it is any shot from play and a strong season is in the forties or fifties. The basketball versions are linked from this page.
Why does this page split field goals at fifty yards?
Because a kicker’s overall percentage mixes near-certainties with near-coin-tosses, and the mixture depends on how often the coach sends him out from distance. The fifty-yard threshold is a convention this page adopts, not a rule — no governing body read for this page publishes distance bands. The arithmetic works for any threshold you choose.
Why is my long-range percentage blank?
Because no attempts were entered from fifty or beyond, and a kicker who never tried one has no long-range percentage. Nought would be a false answer rather than a missing one, so the page withholds it. The same applies to the shorter-range figure when every attempt was long.
Why is the extra point not counted as a field goal?
It is a try, worth one point under a separate rule and taken from a set spot rather than from where play stopped. In the NFL that spot has been fifteen yards from the goal line since 2015, which made it about a thirty-three-yard kick instead of a twenty-yard one, so even extra-point percentages from before and after that change are not comparable with each other.
Related calculators
References
- NFL Football Operations. NFL Video Rulebook — Scoring Plays — the league’s own summaries with section numbers. Rule 11, Section 1, Article 2: “Touchdown: 6 points”, “Field Goal: 3 points”, “Safety: 2 points”, “Try after touchdown: 1 point (Field Goal or Safety) or 2 points (Touchdown)”. Rule 11, Section 3, Article 1: “15 yards from the defensive team’s goal line for a Try-kick” and “two yards from the defensive team’s goal line for a Try by pass or run”. Rule 11, Section 4, Article 1 requires a place kick or drop kick “made by the offense”. About 2,800 characters, text not video. operations.nfl.com (read 15 Oct 2026).
- National Football League. Official Playing Rules of the National Football League, 2020 edition (PDF) — Rule 1 on the goal: “a centrally placed horizontal crossbar 18 feet, 6 inches in length, the top face of which is 10 feet above the ground”, with uprights that “will extend 35 feet above the crossbar” and are “no less than 3 inches and no more than 4 inches in diameter”. A length check matters: the extracted text is 110,687 characters and stops inside Rule 5, so Rule 11 is not in it and the scoring values on this site are cited from the league’s rules pages instead. operations.nfl.com (read 15 Oct 2026).
- NFL Football Operations. NFL Rulebook, 2026 HTML edition — recorded as a NEGATIVE result rather than a source. Rule 1 Section 3 (Goal) and the whole of Rule 11 (Scoring) appear only as table-of-contents headings with no body text; the rule text that does arrive is the field markings list, the 2026 rule-change table and the penalty tables. The field markings list names lines, pylons and arrows, and no red zone. operations.nfl.com (read 15 Oct 2026).
- Wikipedia. Conversion (gridiron football) — for 2015 the NFL moved the kick’s line of scrimmage “back 13 yards to the 15-yard line (for a 33-yard attempt)” while the two-point attempt stayed at the 2, where before “the NFL used the 2-yard line (with the kick coming at the 10-yard line for a 20-yard attempt)”. “In American high school and college football the line of scrimmage is the three-yard line”, with “the kick taking place at the 10-yard line for a 20-yard attempt”. NFL defences became able to return a failed conversion for two points in the same 2015 change; a one-point safety is possible in the CFL, the NFL and American college football; most United States high school play ends when the defence gains possession, except in Texas and Massachusetts, which use NCAA rules (read 15 Oct 2026).
- San Diego County Football Officials Association. 2022 Major NFHS/NCAA Football Rules Differences — an officials’ association’s clause-by-clause sheet for the 2022 season. On the try: NFHS has “Ball dead when kick fails or when B secures possession” and “B cannot score”, while under NCAA rules “The ball remains live as on any field goal attempt” and “B may score two points”. “A 40/25-second play clock is used” in both, but after a touchdown and the following kickoff NFHS sets 25 seconds where the NCAA sets 40; quarters are 12 minutes under NFHS and 15 under NCAA; overtime is “Equal series from 10-yard line (State Association option)” against “Equal series from 25-yard line”; hash marks “Divide field in thirds” against “60 feet from each sideline”. It arrived as flattened text with the columns run together, so only unambiguous rows are quoted. sdcfoa.org (read 15 Oct 2026).