After cinching up the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft before kickoff, the Las Vegas Raiders pulled out an emotional Week 18 victory over their rival Kansas City Chiefs. In the final seconds, kicker Daniel Carlson nailed a career-long 60-yard field goal to help the Raiders end the year on a good note.
And after a year full of struggles for Carlson, and with unrestricted free agency on the horizon, this was a nice way for him to go out. Las Vegas has a difficult decision to make regarding him next month on the open market, and it is currently unknown what general manager John Spytek's plan is.
For kickers, not many, if any, advanced metrics exist to accurately compare players at the position. Was Carlson really that bad this year, or was he just slightly worse than his normal "Cash Money Carlson" self? FanSided's Adam Fromal took the time to find out that answer with a brand-new metric.
FanSided's KVA metric proves Raiders can upgrade from Daniel Carlson
Earlier this month, Fromal introduced Kicker Value Added, or KVA, as a way to dive into NFL kicking performance like never before. It is a bit of uncharted territory, but here is a quick synopsis of what these numbers mean and aim to achieve:
"Instead of treating all makes and misses equally, KVA measures how much value a kicker actually adds (or costs) relative to league expectations from the same distances across the field. A long-distance conversion shouldn’t be weighed the same as a chip shot, and a miss doesn’t carry the same meaning everywhere on the field. As we saw during a 2025 season that featured incredible long-range success, making a 55-yarder this year shouldn't be treated the same as a kicker drilling a 55-yarder in 1985. KVA captures that difference."
Now, let's get into the numbers. A KVA of 0.0 would represent true mediocrity. Any number in the positives means a kicker is adding value to their team. Anything in the negatives means that they are dragging their team down.
Carlson recorded a -1.0249 KVA during the 2025 NFL season, meaning he hurt the Raiders more than he helped them. Out of 43 players who kicked either a field goal or an extra point last season, Carlson ranked 28th, which isn't exactly a grand endorsement for the Raiders re-signing him.
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Not to mention, a handful of kickers who rank ahead of Carlson in the KVA metric will be free agents: Andre Szmyt (2.7593), Matt Prater (3.7485), Zane Gonzalez (4.1579), Brandon Aubrey (6.6509), Harrison Mevis (7.2249), Riley Patterson (7.679), Eddy Pineiro (10.4383) and Nick Folk (11.7096).
Carlson's market value, according to Spotrac, is cheaper than any of those players, and perhaps for familiarity's sake and to save a few bucks, Spytek will call Carlson's performance good enough and re-sign him next month.
An argument can be made for the fact that Carlson hit a rough patch during an impossible year, but he improved as the season went along. A counterargument can certainly be filed detailing Carlson's general decline since 2022.
It will be interesting to see how the Raiders approach this situation. Does Las Vegas have more pressing matters than addressing the kicker position? Yes. But they have to address it next month, and the KVA metric indicates that the Silver and Black should find an upgrade.