Last year, FanSided's Adam Fromal introduced a new means of measuring the effectiveness of kickers in the NFL - the kick value added metric, or KVA for short.
The KVA was used to determine that Detroit Lions kicker Jake Bates' "down" year in 2025 was also a down year on paper, with Fromal writing of Bates' production and his rank of 33rd on the KVA leaderboard:
"Failing to follow up on a phenomenal first year, Jake Bates missed a whopping seven field goals and two extra points."
So, we turned to the KVA and Fromal's kicking notebook once again to digest Bates' shaky performance in Week 3 of the Lions' preseason, and it did come off just as badly by metric as it did by sight. Fromal wrote of the performance:
"Jake Bates also deserves a special shoutout of ignominy for posting -1.87 KVA and, though unquantifiable, the worst kickoff of the week...Bates had the kind of nightmare game that could cause the Detroit Lions to think twice about the length of his leash in 2026. Not only did he misfire right on a pair of extra-point tries — "tries" as the operative word — but he also left a kickoff terrifyingly short of the landing zone, to the point that it almost hit the Indianapolis Colts players who were innocently standing there and assuming they were safe from incoming footballs."
Bates' Week 3 performance landed him at bottom of KVA ranking
Bates' two tries and his terrible kickoff seemed extremely random for him, especially since he hadn't been struggling in camp prior to this game. It makes you think about whether or not it was a misstep for the Lions to avoid adding another kicker in free agency or even through the waiver process in order to create some safety net for Bates.
Obviously, one game shouldn't swing their decision about him starting, but with him coming off a 2025 where he made just 79.4 percent of his field goals, and missed two point after attempts, performances like this are magnified.
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Head coach Dan Campbell certainly doesn't seem worked up about it, telling reporters after that game, "I'm not worried about Bates. He just pushed them a little bit. He'll be fine. He'll be fine." But, it will be worth monitoring his movement on the KVA leaderboard to begin the year to see if his effectiveness, or potential lack thereof, is beginning to cost Detroit any contests.
They'll need all the help they can get on offense with how thin they are on defense. They can't afford to leave points on the board by way of Bates' misses.
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