Lou Groza - Legacy and Kicking Style

Legacy and Kicking Style

While field goals had long been viewed as an important part of football strategy, kicking specialists were a rarity before Groza's time. Groza's success from distances of 40 yards (37 m) and beyond raised the bar for kickers across the league. He set single-season NFL records for accuracy, distance and number of field goals in his first three years in the league, marks that went unbeaten until kicking specialists became a common feature of the game in the early 1970s. Groza's kicking was the difference in 15% of the Browns' games during the AAFC years, and teams began to take notice when his field goals made the difference in both the NFL playoffs and the championship game in 1950. "Everybody started to pay attention to field goals when the Browns started to win games with them," Pat Summerall said. Groza led the NFL in field goals made five times in his career.

Groza was a straight-ahead kicker. He approached the football in a straight line and booted it with the top of his foot, aiming for the middle of the ball. Early in his career, Groza scraped the ground with his cleats in a straight line to help guide his kicks. Later he put down a piece of one-inch adhesive tape rolled up inside his helmet. The "Lou Groza Rule" in 1950 banned the use of artificial kicking aids, including the tape. The straight-ahead style used by Groza and other kickers of his era has since been supplanted by soccer-style kicking with the side of the foot. "I don't know why all the kids kick soccer-style," he said in 1997. "They kick the ball with the side of their foot, which is supposed to give them better control. I don't know, I never tried it."

Groza was named to the National Football League 1950s All-Decade Team in 1969 and iinducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1974. The Browns retired his number 76; he is also in the team's Ring of Honor, a grouping of the best players in the club's history whose names are displayed below upper-deck seats at Cleveland Browns Stadium. In 1992, the Palm Beach County Sports Commission established the Lou Groza Award, given to the best National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) kicker. The Browns' training facility in Berea, Ohio is located at 76 Lou Groza Boulevard. One of his kicking shoes is part of the collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..