The Physics of the Madden Field Goals

Often times an NFL game is decided by a score of 3 points where a field goal kick is a difference in the game. Essentially, the entirety of a football game comes down to the way physics affects the football upon an initial acceleration from the kicker. There are many aspects of physics to focus on for this situation, but the conservation of energy is the most important variable in madden. When I line up to kick a field goal in madden, I push the arrow for kicking the field goal all the way down. 

The reason you get the maximum amount of distance when you push the arrow direction all the way down is that you are kicking the field goal with the least amount of height. This can be interpreted as conservation of energy, where the initial kinetic energy of the kick is related to the potential energy that the kick gains as the ball goes in the air. As the ball goes in the air, some of the energy transforms into the equation m*g*h, where the greater the height means the greater the potential energy. Because the energy of the system is conserved, when the potential energy goes up then the kinetic energy of the kick goes down. Therefore, if you want your kick to travel the furthest distance, your best bet is to reduce your height of the kick as much as possible (without letting the linemen block the field goal), because this would maintain the greatest amount of kinetic energy for the kick with the greatest velocity in the intended direction.