Due to an injury in 2025, Tyler Bass never took the field for the Buffalo Bills. The Bills’ kicker since 2020, Bass still holds the team record for most points in a single season with 141 points during his rookie year. That beat out Steve Christie’s former record by a single point, and three ahead of O.J. Simpson’s 1975 season.
Bass actually sits not only in the number one spot for this record, but also spots four, six, eight, and 13. A lot of this is due to the offense getting Bass into position
for field goals and extra points at a high rate, but the bottom line is that Bass adds a ton of points to the team.
Do you know who is a bit down the list? Matt Prater. His 100 points comes in at 34th in the list. Despite that, Prater had overall good vibes from fans. Prater is currently set for free agency, but if the Bills really liked what he brought to the table, Buffalo could try to keep him around.
When it comes to money matters, Bass is still under contract, but not for any crazy amount since he’s a kicker and all. Prater (or a third option) would come cheap so any significant reluctance with Bass means he’s not immovable. We’re here for analysis though. Which kicker has the edge?
The Stats
I’m a big fan of heat-mapping my tables. In the above one, I used the league average from this year as a baseline. Light blue cells are good, light red cells are bad. Gray cells are either neutral or need context for any sort of meaning. Let’s break things down with some fun thoughts and since there aren’t too many, let’s go line by line.
- 0 – 19 Range: Neither kicker for the Bills even attempted a short kick. Overall the league didn’t either as teams using analytics trended toward going for it in this range. Keep an eye on this with Joe Brady. It’s not that these kicks are always unjustifiable, but there should be a good reason to be going for three rather than seven when you’re that close.
- 20 -29 Range: Matt Prater has the obvious advantage here making all his short kicks. Bass falls what looks like significantly under the league average, but in reality only missed one kick. Missing is bad, don’t get me wrong, but I should also add that this miss is Bass’ only career miss from this zone. Prater has only missed two in his career to be fair, and he’s had a much longer career. Prater has the edge, but this zone shouldn’t be a concern.
- 30 – 39 Range: In the single season marks, Bass has the edge over Prater. That said, Prater has the better career average, right in line with the league mark. Bass falls under 90% for his career so he wins the “what have you done lately” contest, but has long term question marks.
- 40 – 49 Range: This one is the strongest pull toward one kicker over the other and it’s in favor of Prater. Even in his 40s, Prater nailed all of the kicks from this range, whereas Bass falls well under league average. When we look at career average, some interesting things shake out. Both kickers are under the 84.3% that the league averaged this season. Bass has the higher career rating with 78.6% made compared to Prater’s 72.3%. The 2024 season is the only one in which Bass missed more than two kicks in this range.
- 50+ Range: The lack of attempts for Prater make this hard to be as definitive as it could be, but aside from validity concerns with the data it’s a clear edge toward Tyler bass. Interestingly, Prater has the career edge in this range with 74.5% compared to Bass’ 69.6%.
- Total: Prater has a strong lead in this metric looking at their single season numbers. For their careers, Bass has made 84.5% of his kicks, which is right around league average. Prater? He sits at 83.8%. Bass has the edge technically, but both are very comparable.
- Longest: I’m not too worried about this metric as far as data goes. A kicker is often at the mercy of the coaching decision. That said, both kickers have been good from 60+. Prater has the edge with a 64-yard kick early in his career and a 62-yarder as recently as 2023. Father time is undefeated (Prater), and injuries can be tricky to come back from (Bass).
- Extra Points: Both kickers are pretty equivalent in for these, and neither are THAT far out of whack with the league average.
- Kickoff average and touchback rate: These are here for fun, but mostly to show just how effective changing the touchback line has been. Bass was told to boot it out of the endzone, Prater was asked to drop it in the landing zone.
For my two cents, it would be nice to have an automatic kicker, but neither Matt Prater nor Tyler Bass held the team back a crazy amount. I would likely roll with Bass unless there’s a compelling reason to think he won’t be ready to go for a second season in a row.
