Ever since I’ve been paying attention to fantasy football, it has been all about six positions (not talking IDP). People argue about which of the big three (QB, RB, WR) is the most important, and even that has changed over the years. However, if you asked 100 fantasy football players which of the six positions is the least important, you would most likely get a unanimous answer: the kicker.
Kickers have long been a fantasy afterthought at best. Every fantasy guide for beginners that you read will have one piece of advice in common, “Pick your kicker in the last round of your draft.” Most of us have probably been in a draft once upon a time with an individual who drafted an entire starting lineup before they picked any backups. Meaning they took their kicker in the middle rounds and everyone else snickered a little bit. Some of us might have even been that guy during our first year! That isn’t the only example of how people feel about kickers. It is pretty common to read a post or article where the well-respected writer makes a comment along the lines of “Drop your kicker to free up an offseason roster spot” (Tim Stafford just gave this advice in a mailbag post) or when it comes to bye weeks, “Just pick up a different kicker because they are all the same.” Just in case you need more examples, DLF doesn’t even have a kickers ranking on their website. Hopefully I can convince you that not only should kickers be an afterthought, but that they aren’t even worth a single thought. Remove them from your league!
So, why do people like kickers?
Even with the commonly held belief that kickers are by far the least important position on a fantasy roster, they still hang on. My question is why? I asked a few people and these were the four common responses that I received with a counter argument for each one:
1,) Kickers are a part of a NFL team, so they should be on a fantasy team.
True, they are a part of an NFL team. However, so are offensive linemen, punters and long snappers. However, I’ve never seen any of them on fantasy rosters.
2,) We’ve always had kickers on our roster.
Just because you’ve always done something, doesn’t mean it is the best or the right way to do it. When you were first born, you always wore a diaper – I’m guessing that isn’t the case right now. We change and improve as time goes on. It’s time to improve your fantasy roster as well.
3,) Kickers add luck to my fantasy games.
If you really wanted “luck” to be the governing factor for your fantasy team, you would draw the names of players you were drafting from a hat and flip a coin every time you were made a trade offer. The whole reason we spend the time that we do is to make educated choices and remove as much luck as possible.
4,) I can still gain an advantage by having the best kicker.
I’ll talk about this one in a little bit, but the major issue is that it is almost impossible to predict before the season starts who the best kicker will be at the end of the season. Not only that, but it is very inconsistent from year to year. Not to mention that the “advantage” you gain for all of your hard work in predicting the right kicker is very, very limited.
Before I go any further, let me talk about the ground rules I used in looking at kickers. I needed a perspective, so I just made some choices I thought were the most common.
- I worked under the scoring assumption of three points for a FG and 1 point for an XP. No bonuses for distance, penalties for misses, or anything else. I kept it simple.
- I tracked individual kickers, not team kickers.
- I chose to look at it from the perspective of a 12-team league where teams only roster one kicker. That means that the top 12 kickers are the only ones on fantasy rosters.
- Averages were calculated using 16 games. Meaning if a team was shut out, that was factored into the average.
- Bye weeks were ignored as was the idea of playing matchups. If Mason Crosby is your kicker, you obviously used someone else at least one week of the year, but that gets way too complicated.
So, who are the best kickers?
It is a very good question and with just a few exceptions, the short answer is that there aren’t any “best kickers” in fantasy. Using the ground rules above, I looked back at the last five NFL seasons. I found the top 12 kickers for each year. There have been four different top kickers over the last five years. There also ended up being 31 different kickers on the list! There was only one kicker who was on the top 12 list for all five seasons, three kickers who were there for four seasons, and two more who were there for three seasons. That means of the 31 kickers that ranked in the top 12 during at least one of the seasons, 25 of them (over 80%) were either one and done or performed well in just two of the five seasons – that means we’re talking about inconsistency even worse than that of running backs when it comes to repeating top performances.
Let’s talk a little bit about those top six kickers. They are Mason Crosby (five seasons), David Akers (four), Stephen Gostkowski (four), Matt Bryant (four), Nate Kaeding (three) and Rob Bironas (three). While they did finish in the top 12 more than anyone else, that doesn’t exactly mean they are all superior to everyone else.
Let me explain.
Bryant didn’t have any top three finishes, Kaeding had only one season (2009 when he was #1) where he was above the average of the top 12 kickers as did Bironas (#3 in 2007). That leaves three kickers that seem to be superior to the masses. However, Crosby has only one top three finish, which was 2007 when he led all kickers in scoring. In the other four seasons, his top mark was 0.3 points per week above the average with two seasons below average. That left only two kickers remaining, Akers and Gostkowski, out of all 31 options who have been consistently (four of five seasons) above average – that’s 6% of kickers who are consistent. Aside from them, you might as well throw darts.
What advantage do I get by having a “good” kicker, you ask?
For the sake of argument, let’s say you happened to pick the right kicker. Again, many different kickers have finished in the top 3 over the last 5 years, and only two (Akers and Gostkowski) have done it more than once. What do you gain by doing that? If we compare the best kicker to the worst kicker over the last five seasons, you get a whopping 1.7 points per game advantage! Now, you’re not always going to play the worst kicker in the league, so that number is a bit too high. If we compare the best to the average, you gain just about a one point per week advantage. In contrast, the team with the 12th best kicker only loses 0.7 points per week when compared to the average. Even if you could pick the right kicker, is it really worth your time to do so for a point or less?
Personally, I would much rather focus my time and roster spots on the other positions and just forget that kickers even exist, especially in a dynasty league. They are unpredictable, inconsistent, an afterthought at best, and present very little return on any amount of time spent.
Now is the time to “Kick the Kicker” from your fantasy league!
- Final 2021 Pre-Draft Rookie Mock: Round Three - April 28, 2021
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Good read, but I want to counter your first point, that offensive linemen, punters and long snappers are not part of leagues either by saying that we actually use punters in one of my leagues, and if meaningfull stats where available for offensive linemen and long snappers then I think they should be included as well.
All the leagues I have played in the last 10 years have been moving towards more and more resembling the NFL, first by going to PPR, then by adding IDP and then by increasing the lineup and the rosters sizes and I must admit I like it that way as it makes it possible to use many different tactics to win a league.
Glad that you liked it. If you really wanted to add offensive linemen to a league, you could always look at pancakes for positives and sacks allowed for negatives. Never heard of a league doing punters before. I had to look at things that were the most common though. Kickers are (unfortunately) in almost every league. Punters aren’t. Thanks for reading!
Good stuff. I’d like for all of my leagues to dump the kicker position. It’s really pointless and all it does is add randomness to the game. I won a game in 2010 thanks to a 22 point week from Josh Scobee. That’s silly. (But I admit I remember it!)
“I worked under the scoring assumption of three points for a FG and 1 point for an XP. No bonuses for distance, penalties for misses, or anything else. I kept it simple.”
Not saying this makes kickers a supremely important position, but when you DO incorporate distance bonuses (as we do in our leagues) it add a slight element of skill, as opposed to just luck. Some guys have better legs than others.
I did think about that when I was writing it. I took one of the years (rolled a die to see which one), and I looked at the numbers with a distance based method to see if it changed things. I did 3 points for 39 yards or less, 4 for 40-49, and 5 for 50+. It made very little difference in the numbers for the year I chose. The 11th ranked kicker that year dropped out of the top 12, the 5th and 6th kickers switched spots, the 10th kicker dropped to 11th, and the 14th ranked kicker (Janikowski) moved up to 10th place. I was expecting more of a difference, but it really didn’t do much.
Most kickers make roughly the same proportions of 39 yards or less, 40-49 yards, and 50+. True, some kicks hit more 50 yard FGs, but the difference between 2 50+ yarders and 8 50+ yarders is only 6 points. So just going 3 points for all FGs didn’t change things that much at all, and it made it easier to look at.
Thanks for the comment!
Jacob! Thank you a million times for writing this piece. Make a blessing fall upon all your houses. And that coming from a devout atheist. Anyway I’m so glad you ran numbers and did a study. My biggest issue was going to be that all my league incorporate some kind of distance bonus and several of my leaguemates have virtual kicker boners and borderline bromance style man crushes on guys like Janikowski. It drives me nuts.
That’s why I’m glad I dug down deeper for this comment. I wish you had incorporated that information into the article too though. I mean you broke it down simply enough in a paragraph above. You should throw it in the main body of the article.
For those of us in the trenches with you, looking to eliminate kickers from the mainstream of fantasy football we need ammunition.
Fight on soldier and let us know of any openings for non kicker leagues. Can we start our own mini-section in the forums?
Thanks Matt! You made me laugh!
I was going to include the distance scoring in it as well, but I didn’t want to make it too long. The overall results for distance scoring were almost identical. Point spread, who finished top 12, top 3, etc were all pretty much the same. Since it didn’t change anything, I didn’t do the rest of the numbers nor include it in the article.
Hopefully these numbers will help you convince your league. It is a tough fight though, because you are basically trying to break a habit. Good luck!
why not have them? who cares if on average they are all the same. it varies from week to week.
I beleive the article clearly explains WHY not to have them. That was the point.
Very well written by the way! I think that the randomness and unpredictability of the kicking position is sadly trumped by people that are comfortable doing something just because thats how they learned, and that is what they’ve always done. I equate it to the english version of measurement to the decimal system. The decimal system is more or less globally accepted and it frankly makes much more sense as it’s easier to convert. The English version – we are all comfortable with here in the U.S. and frankly it is what “we” have always used. This clearly makes us stubborn, elitest, and frankly out of the loop.
Kickers are unpredictable at best. Some offenses may score alot – this gives that kicker more chances at xtra points (1pt), some offenses stink, less chances at xtra points but “maybe” more stalled drives which “could” provide more chances at field goals (3pts). Throw in the fact that blocked kicks can happen, as well as poor, bobbled snaps, wind, rain, snow, etc…. and what you have is a completely unpredictable part of a fantasy team that was put together by researching tendancies and trends. Simply put, it is counter productive, and makes little sense to draft a kicker, take up a roster spot, and try to predict the unpredictable.
Very well written and an interesting subject.
Good work. I think alot of traditionalists will learn alot from your article.
I don’t like it. Kickers score points. Points should be accounted for in fantasy football.
Who cares if they all score close to each other throughout the year. there really is no point in not having one.
Well, the point of the article is that there isn’t a point to having them! But, it isn’t for everyone. Thanks for reading and commenting!
There is a middle road, as well. You can devalue the kickers substantially by giving them fewer points for FG’s (1, 2 or 3, depending on distance), zero points for PAT’s, subtracting 2 points for a missed FG or PAT), penalizing them even more for last-minute FG misses, or whatever else you can think of that minimizes their value.
I think it’s worth having kickers for FF because a late 50 yard FG can win you a game and it makes for one more thing to track and enjoy on Sundays. It’s also a little unpredictable and there should be room in this game for unpredictability. The last part is that drafting good kickers requires analysis and finesse, and that’s worth something, too.
Thanks for the comment, but I strongly disagree that you can “draft a good kicker” through “analysis and finesse”. I think anyone would be very hard pressed to identify the top 5 kickers this year. It is just far too random and changes too much from year to year. I guess you are welcome to try though!
As for the unpredictability, I think there is more than enough everywhere else. Think about it for a second. A good WR will get 8 TDs a year. That means half the games he isn’t scoring. That right there is a 6 point swing. Now if he doubles up in one game, it is a 12 point swing. Add in all of the roster spots and there is a ton of unpredictability. Do you really need more?
I disagree, but only because this is dynasty league football. The guy who picked up Mason Crosby in our league when he was a rookie nailed it, as did the owner who drafted Stephen Gostkowski before anyone know who he was. They’ve reaped the benefits for those great picks.
I think the kicker position makes more sense in dynasty than in redraft leagues. In dynasty, it’s a long-term drafting decision, and the kicker’s tendency to be superior will play out over time. You’re also analyzing the future offensive capabilities of the team that drafted him, and that has a bearing on who you draft.
Last year I had to waive Garrett Hartley, who I was excited to have on my team, to pick up John Kasay for a likely one year gig. I couldn’t afford to carry Hartley for the year and had to bite the bullet. These decisions are worthy of dynasty strategy and finesse.
I think the answer is to reduce kicker points by as much as 50%, but not to get rid of them.
BTW, our new proposed scoring system for kickers gives them 1 point up to 25 yards, 2 points up to 40 yards, 3 points up to 55 yards and 4 points 56+. We’ll subtract 2 points for every missed FG and PAT.
We also have an additional plus 1 or minus 1 for last minute, game-winning (or losing) field goals.
What that means is a last-minute, game-winning attempt can result in a plus 5 or a minus 3. That should pump up the scream/groan (and therefore excitement)factor pretty substantially. That’s fun.
Well, to each their own. Though reducing kickers scoring by 50% makes the differences between them even less significant and less worthy of the time!
I think the fact that these are dynasty leagues makes kickers worth even less! They change so much that keeping a kicker from year to year makes even less sense. Look at the turnover rate for the top 12.
As for reaping the rewards on Mason Crosby, I guess that all depends on what you consider “rewards” to be. The point difference is minimal, and I mentioned Crosby specifically in the article. Unless your league has charges for free agent adds, you could have done almost as well on the wavier wire.
I wouldn’t say they’re “reaping” the rewards. If the best kicker is 1.7 points better than the 12th best kicker… that’s 8.5 points if they’ve had that kicker for 5 years. And it’s even less since the top kicker changes every year. I better you wouldn’t even notice the difference between having Gostkowski or someone like Kasay who had to pinch kick.
Great article, definitely has me, and i’m sure many, at least contemplating the idea of kicking the kicker! To keep on the devils advocate side, point #1 says that the NFL has kickers so we should as well. ANd you go on to say well so are OL, Punters, etc. Well, Kickers score points, punters and OL don’t (or arent supposed to!). They have a real effect on the outcome of a game in the NFL and a sometimes unequal advantage some weeks in fantasy.
Maybe, as opposed to removing them completely, do as moyer says and change the scoring in such a way that you really have to think about which kicker you plug in on sunday. You look at total points for the year, and yes, in the end you end up pretty much equal. It’s pretty much the same with Team D’s (and i still see Dynasties using Team D…ugh). But, if you play the matchups (and especially under some of the scoring changes Moyer suggests) there’s a real advantage to be had if you do your research. Game conditions, opponents, venue, etc all play a factor.
Worst case there is no strategy, or advantage. But at least the THOUGHT of there being one may be enough to make it a worthwhile position, if not for nothing else, it preserves tradition.
But, there’s always a time for change. Poor kickers, always getting picked on! haha. I will say, that i do hate roasting a guy and being up by 15 with only their kicker going monday night and losing. Nothing, is worse.
Such is fantasy!
You looked at kickers individually, but in reality smart owners are going to look at this as one more place to make a tough lineup decision, much like the flex spot.
I routinely add and drop kickers based on matchups and what field they will be playing at.
Wind is bad for kickers, while I will often take a kicker from a team I feel will have trouble scoring but will get downfield therefore giving me the 3 points.
Not to mention as the poster above mentioned, many leagues give extra points depending on yardage. Overall it is another area that you can possibly use to your advantage and see no problem with that.
The K spot is all about using that 10 minutes of extra time to take a look at the matchups
If you eliminate the kicker then why not the defenses? They produce the same randomness as the kicker.
I haven’t looked at the numbers for team defenses, but why if their numbers are like kickers, I’m all for it! Go IDP.
I agree that by inserting random good matchup kicker each week is almost as effective as having Akers or Gostkowski..but technically..as you said..its not as effective. I dont know how many games in my league people won by just 2 points or less..but it happens far too frequently. Sure..you can call it luck because you picked the right kicker..but maybe you also got lucky with the right team D, or the right WR on the Saints..etc.
As we play this wonderful game and try to add more and more stats and positions and rules to resemble coaching and managing a real NFL team (as mentioned above by Madster), we shouldnt eliminate a position because its sometimes just a guess. Having a superior kicker, even if its only for 1 or 2 seasons..can make or break a week or even a season because of that position alone. Sure, you can argue that for any of the positions..but if your kicker gets 130 points or so in fantasy, that is more than plenty of RBs, WRs and TEs. The kicker slot, while drafted last, is still an important piece each week..even if its not half as depdendable as Calvin Johnson or Arian Foster or Aaron Rodgers.
True, a randome kicker isn’t as good as Akers. However, there is only one Akers. Virtually everyone else is the same. If you don’t have Akers, you might as well work the wavier wire, play matchups, etc.
As to your last part, yes, 130 points is 130 points. However, the differences at the kicker position are minimal. If your kicker scores 130 points and everyone else’s scores 135, did you really miss out on much? The differences between the top QB, RB, or WR and the average at their position is a heck of a lot more than 1 point.
Well I am not comparing Akers or Janikowski to Ray Rice or Matthew Stafford..but I am saying that if you can land a top 5 kicker who will likely get you about 10 points a week (as opposed to those who get 6 or 7 perhaps), and in some leagues (like mine) where people often win 98 to 96 or thereabouts..a kicker can be incredibly important!
Averages of 10 to 6 aren’t realistic. Go back and re-read starting at:
“What advantage do I get by having a “good” kicker, you ask?”
Assuming you can predict the “good” kickers, it answers your comment perfectly.
I’m not saying a kicker never decided a game. Then again, who says it was the kicker that decided it? Could have been that fumble or INT. Could have been the broken tackle or the holding call.
First off, I said about 10 to 6 or 7. So if thats 9.5 to 7.25..thats still 2.25 points. Not enough to gripe over..except whne you lose a game by 1 to 2 points! 🙂
In my league..I was lucky and smart enough to snag Akers..he had 193 points.
Crosby had 150.
Gould had 139.
Kasay with 156.
Gostkowski had 157.
Hanson had 139.
Janikowski had 153.
Bailey had 151.
Novak had 138.
A lot of parity in the middle indeed (most were 135-60) in fact more than I expected which lands credence to this article’s point, but I still don’t like eliminating the position..if you are smart enough to pick up a good kicker, you give yourself better odds of winning that game and maybe your season as well. Maybe it doesnt always work..and maybe its a crapshoot too much..but thats part of the NFL..any given Sunday!
😉
Yeah, when you look at the numbers it starts to make more sense. For the record, Akers’ season last year was a record setter in a lot of ways. With the scoring method used for the article, his 2011 season average was over a full point higher per game than any kicker in the previous 10 years. So just looking at last year’s numbers will make it seem like a bigger difference than it really is.
In my “Family league” we have two kickers. But the scoring is insane, with teams winning 400 to 350 on a weekly basis. (Same concept as reducing the kicker’s importance)
However, the bench is really thin (6 players on bench I think?) so I don’t bother with kickers. I stash 2 extra guys I like and if I lose by 20 or less, I consider it the price of keeping them.
In another league, we have punters too… the Colquitts always make me happy. I might even draft this JAX guy in the last round
I think it is a smart move to keep two other players on your bench instead of the kickers, as long as the kicker scoring is a small percentage. Those 2 other guys might come in handy! In a dynasty start-up I’m in, I didn’t draft a kicker. I would rather keep an extra player or two through the summer and training camp. Then I can just pick a kicker up off the wavier wire before week 1. Who knows, that guy I kept through the summer could turn into the next Arian Foster or Victor Cruz. Well worth the gamble.
If your dynasty league allows you to waive and pick up kickers on a weekly basis, I don’t really think it’s a true dynasty league. It’s a redraft league in sheep’s clothing.
We have one preseason draft, one mid-year draft; that’s it. NFL teams can’t go out and pick up starting kickers every week; dynasty leagues shouldn’t allow it.
NFL teams do it all the time! If the place kicker for team X only makes 2 of 6 FGs in 3 weeks, you don’t think they bring in some kickers for “workouts” that next week? It happens every year. NFL teams only carry 1 place kicker. If they suck or get hurt, they get cut or put on IR and the NFL team pulls in a guy not on an NFL roster. Same thing as a fantasy team pulling people off of the wavier wire. If your league only allows player additions twice a year, it is even more strict than the actual NFL and in the extreme minority of dynasty football leagues.
Correct. Just like you can’t pick up a kicker on someone else’s Fantasy team. They bring in a kicker not on a NFL team just like you can sign a kicker not on a fantasy team. I fail to see the issue.
To me, dynasty leagues are not revolving door leagues, a la redraft leagues. Having two set drafts a year and no waiver wire pickups makes it more aligned with the NFL. It also makes both drafts much more interesting, with many more players available and draft strategies much more important. We started our dynasty league in 1988 and have seen all the manifestations over the years.
That’s fine. I’m very glad that you enjoy that setup. It just isn’t the “typical” setup. Most dynasty leagues do allow waiver pickups mid-season. Not all strategies apply to all leagues. It doesn’t mean it is a bad strategy. It just doesn’t work for you.
Okay, I’ve been defending the kicker position for years, please allow me to quickly and humbly add my ten cents to the conversation;
My primary litmus test for the non-randomness of the kicker position is a simple challenge for any of you kicker-haters out there. If indeed there is no difference between one kicker and the next on a weekly basis, then let’s have a kicker-only draft every week of the nfl season. I’ll pick the first ten and you pick the next ten. New draft each week so I can take into account matchups, coaching styles, weather, big legs, high-octane offenses, tough red zone defenses, whatever factors I feel are relevant. You will then pull whichever names remain out of a hat since they are all the same to you. We can use any scoring method you want- use distance, don’t use distance, whatever you like. Remember, new draft each week so I can keep updating my rankings and recognizing how the team/coach/offense is using their kicking game throughout the year and how that player is performing to date.
When we add up the points each week, my team will outscore yours damn near every time. PROBABLY every single time. Significantly so. I would be happy to wager on this if anyone is interested. Or to simply do it as an exercise to prove my point.
I am convinced that I have found advantages at the kicker position for years (not every year, but many) and that folks who don’t try to do so are leaving points off the scoreboard that are there to be found. Not an exact science of course, and the margins are slim, but there IS a difference between kickers in fantasy. Throw in the fact that they play such a HUGE part in actual NFL scoring and offensive strategy, and it just doesn’t make sense to me to leave them out of fantasy football.
Interesting conversation, thanks for the article, I always enjoy a friendly disagreement like this one!
Oyage!*
-sg
*please pardon the obscure Disney kicker reference, I couldn’t resist.
I agree..I usually either look for a kicker on a high scoring team like the Saints or Packers, or alternatively, on a team that can move the ball well but doesnt make it into the end zone often enough like the Niners or Ravens, or just has the leg from the gods (like Janikowski).
I 100% agree with you.
If you can do it, great. Easy to do in hindsight, but a lot more difficult to do before a season starts. However, even if you can, is it worth the time?
I looked at the top 10 offenses from last year. They produced in order: 4th, 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 12th, outside the top 20, 9th, 16th, outside the top 20, and the 5th best kickers last year. So only 4 of the top 10 offenses produced kickers that were above the median of the top 12.
If you like kickers, then by all means, keep them. However, after looking at the numbers, I don’t really think anyone can consistently predict kicker performance at a level where you can produce accurate dynasty rankings for kickers.
Yeah..I guess if you cut it all a notch deeper..is there usually a kicker worth holding onto for the course of a year? Likely.
But in terms of dynasty? Heck no.
Great article though..and obviously sparking much debate..which are the best kinds of articles!
Thanks for the response! I do think you missed part of the arguement though. I was looking at the top 12 kickers each year. In otherwords, the 12 kickers that should be on fantasy rosters. The other 20 shouldn’t be used in a 12 team league. There is a difference between the top kicker and the 32nd kicker, but the 32nd kicker doesn’t matter. Kicker is like every other position. There is a difference between the best and the worst. The think that seperates kickers is that the difference between the best and the average player in a lineup is almost non-existant.
I think a better “challenge” would be for you to rank your top 5, 10, 15 etc kickers and we can see how close the list is at the end of the year.
Again, there is a difference between the best and the worst, but the best compared to the rest of kickers being used isn’t significant over the full season. One week, sure. But not a full season. Thanks again for the comments!
I don’t think you understand the article. Obviously if you take the top 10 kickers, which is 2 less than the number that will start, and I take the bottom 10, that probably aren’t even rostered, you’re gonna outscore me. But the point was comparing no. 1 to no.6, where there’s very little difference.
I responded below, probably should have put it here instead, sorry, new to this format.
As an additional note, I absolutely did understand the article, I just don’t think the culmulative (lack of) difference between kickers 1-12 after a full season is reason enough to eliminate kickers from fantasy. If weekly data is at least somewhat predictable, and I’m claiming it is, then it can be leveraged in the game of fantasy football. And if, given the first six picks, I can succesfully predict six kickers that will outscore whichever six kickers you take after me, then the data is indeed at least somewhat predictable.
That seems like simple logic to me, despite my apparent lack of ability to make my case in fewer words 🙂 Sorry bout that…
I think kickers are stupid. One of my leagues dropped kickers and team defense this past year and it was awesome.
A friend of mine lost his dynasty championship game by 8 points. He had Cundiff as his kicker and didn’t realize transactions weren’t allowed during the playoffs. Cundiff’s replacement had 9 points.
I actually lost a championship in a similar way. My kicker was injured the week before the championship. We didn’t allow free agent adds in the playoffs. I lost by 3 points. Ever since then, I feel forced to carry 2 kickers into the playoffs, which is 2 too many in my opinion. Thanks for reading!
Kicker Stink And Steve Giles Smells of Elderberries!
It’s OK, he’s my friend. He’s only here because I prompted him to join in the debate. School him, Jacob! He love charts and numbers cause he’s a poindexter!
ugh typos… grammar.. typing to fast. apologies.
I think reading all these comments shows you should leave them in. Some guys think they get a big advantage analysing kickers and obviously enjoy that part of the pool. For those who think, or prove, that all kickers are pretty much the same, just grab one or two at the end of the draft and forget about them. Or pick up a random one each week, whatever.
As for the randomness or unpredictability or whatever was said about a kicker getting 22 points deciding a week, that’s no different than the 4th or 5th receiver on a team getting 3 TD’s one week, or a no-name defensive end getting hot one game and getting 3 sacks and a forced fumble. They often provide wins for the guy who grabbed him off waivers for a bye week or injury replacement. There’s plenty of unpredictability in real NFL games why do some people feel it’s a horror for fantasy games to have any?
I convinced my league to get rid of kickers a couple of years ago… well, mostly.
There was a little resistance to the change, so we compromised by allowing kickers in the flex. Occaisionally someone will still roster or even start a “top” kicker — opening themselves to league-wide ridicule and shame, but for the most part we eliminated the kicker crap-shoot from the equation.
I’ll agree that at the end of the year, in retrospect, there isn’t much difference between kickers 1-12, fine. My point is that on a week-to-week basis it is possible to predict better performances amongst kickers. The key is “on a week-to-week basis.” If you must live with whichever kicker you draft for the full season then I’m with you, it’s virtually impossible to tell which guy will be better. But by playing the waiver wire and paying attention I’m convinced you can guys that will be better than others. With that in mind, allow me to restate my challenge from earlier so it only encompasses only the top twelve kickers each week;
Each week, give me my choice of the first six kickers I want and you can have the next six, whichever guys you want that I didn’t take. Every week for a season we “redraft” new teams of six kickers each, with me always getting to pick the first six. I WILL outscore you most if not all weeks. If I am right, and I’m quite willing to actually do this for money or for the sake of proving a point, then it seems impossible to argue that there is no significant difference between kickers. It isn’t strictly random, there is at least some method to the madness of picking them and an observant owner can squeeze out a few extra points most weeks of a given season.
Read that last sentence again please. Isn’t that what fantasy football is supposed to be about? Besides just “having fun” of course 🙂
Matchups, weather, coaching philosophies, confidence or lack thereof, strength of that kickers defense, strength of opponents red zone defense, indoor vs. outdoor stadiums, health, these are just the factors off the top of my head that can influence who will perform better, not for the entire season, but for a given week.
Again, interesting discussion, fun to be a part of the back and forth 🙂
Also, Until Mr. Feit accepts my challenge and puts his money where his mouth is, he is both wrong about the randomness of kickers as well as the one who’s mother was a hamster…
Kickers suck. They are not fun. Again if in studying kickers ad naseum week to week to determine an advantage is a valid point of the game? Why not argue for adding punters, o-line men, long snappers, complete IDP. You can make an argument on any position that you can find a way week to week to pick the better one. Kickers are terrible. They aren’t fun. I dont care that the score actual NFL points. Fantasy football would be better served adding in yardage to kick and punt returns, passes defensed and pancake blocks by centers and guards. and im sure many league incorporate all that [email protected] too.
and my mother was a gerbil! get it right!
yeah we get yards for kick and punt returns..as well as PPR…makes guys like Danny Amendola, Percy Harvin, Dexter McCluster..etc..potentially more valuable!
It is about time someone came out and said it…kickers are so stupid for fantasy and require no skill in picking one!!!
Head coach in dynasty anyone? +10 for a win. -5 for a loss.
Funny. We have head coaches: 4 points for a home win as favorite, 6 points as a home win as underdog, 5 points for a road win as favorite, 7 points for a road win as underdog. It’s another fun category to play with, especially when coaches get canned and move around.
Lol. Gotta throw a joke out here once in awhile. This site sometimes can get a little too serious. Also, if you’re coach gets canned why are they on a ‘roster’ anyways?
Keep the Kicker! Not out of habit or because that’s the way things have always been. Because they score points. The argument regarding the randomness of a kicker’s week to week scoring can be made for any position. A good scoring system will provide a similar number of points to the average starter. I just started a dynasty league this off-season and put a lot of thought into the scoring. Rather than play down the kicker points, we upped the ante. 1.75 per PAT and 0.1 points for each yard of a MADE FG. It will be important for each of our owners to take each position seriously, including kicker. Personally, I’m hoping to get Bailey from Dallas when we finish off our 13th-20th rounds this fall. He’s young, big leg, and accurate. Some weeks he won’t get much, but that can be said for any player.
Another argument in favor of dropping kickers. They are the only position on a fantasy team that you are going to actively cheer for their real life team to play poorly, so they get you more points. With the kicker you want their offense to only move the ball into FG range, then let them kick. If they score the TD, you get fewer points. How is that at all like managing a real team? It has even been mentioned in these comments – you pick the kicker based on who you think will move the ball well but not score TDs. Isn’t it a little strange to be cheering against TDs in football?
As an aside, I think Punters would actually at least make more sense in this regard. Awarding points for punt distance (net yards would be silly because the coverage team determines that) and for pins inside the 20, 10, and 5 would be interesting I think.
Interesting, over half of the IDP dynasty league I’m in use punters
Punt Yards -100-999 .02 point for every 1
Punts Inside 20 0-99 1 point each
The trend in leagues that I’ve observed runs counter to your suggestion, I see more and more leagues adding complexity, positions, scoring permutations. I haven’t been part of a league where I’ve seen the opposite done.
That’s not to say that’s necessarily a good thing, just the gravity of the past few years.
I love this article and agree 100%
Jacob, My friends are still raving about their grand wager/experiment to prove kickers can be skillfully predicted week to week. Their proposal a weekly contest in which they choose 6 kickers from a pool of all 32 and then I choose from remaining 26 and that they will outscore me every week. What I replied with was that regardless of whether that is true or not is irrelevant because in no league will all 32 kickers be on the wire ANY week more or less EVERY week. In fact they should remove at least the top twelve kickers any given week from their experiment to make it even REMOTELY RELEVANT. Your thoughts?
My thoughts are that you are exactly right. If the purpose of the experiment are to similate the predictability of kickers, picking six from the total 32 doesn’t make sense. If anything, you should take the top 10-15 kickers out of it to simulate the 10 teams that hold a kicker or two through the season. Then they can choose a kicker from what is left, and you can draw a random kicker that is playing that week. That would be the most accurate simulation of trying to predict vs random picking.
However, that isn’t really what the article was even about. There are obviously better kickers than others if you look at all 32 teams, though with very minimal differences within the top group. If they want an experiment, it would need to be something that simulates what would actually happen in a dynasty league where teams keep the same players over an extended period of time.
A more fitting challenge would be for them to pick 6 kickers right now. Ideally they would keep those kickers for multiple years to validate the point of the article that there is massive turnover from year to year, but that would just drag things out. So lets just do it for one year. They get those kickers for the whole year, regardless of what happens. They can even name a bye week replacement for each kicker if you really want. But the key is doing it all now, before the season, since the intent is to simulate drafting a kicker. That could simulate half of the teams in a “league” that draft a kicker. Then you get to pick 6 kickers off of the “wavier wire” each week to simulate the other half of the league that just takes whoever is left each week. I bet the differences between the two groups of six would be very minimal over the course of the season.
The bottom line is that this is just one of several choices that a league must make when deciding how they want their league set up. Kickers add an extra element of luck and unpredictability that some people like. Obviously, I don’t like that for the reasons stated in the article. However, everyone can have their own opinion. Good luck with the battle. I’ve been fighting it for 2 years in one of my leagues.
Great discussion! A lot of what is being said is really insightful. Let me add my two cents in with the disclaimer that every league is a little different and different people will want to play different ways. This is just what we think is going to work for our league.
We are of the opinion that in dynasty you can pick a kicker that will give you good long-term value. An example given above was drafting Mason Crosby. In picking a kicker in dynasty you are attempting to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of an offense, something that fits perfectly with the spirit of dynasty league football.
We are implementing a new feature starting in the upcoming season. We are adding a roster spot but are also mandating a roster minimum of two kickers. The net effect of this is that you have the same roster as last year but you have a freebee spot to keep your bye week kicker. The main idea here is that it prevents teams from having to take any of the three following actions on the bye week of their kicker: drop a guy like Crosby or Akers, play without a kicker one week, or drop a player at another position to make room for a bye week kicker. A fringe benefit I suppose is that you can have the “stud” kicker (if you can call any kicker a stud) on your roster that you keep long-term and you can play the “pick a kicker” game each week with the other spot.
Again, it might not be the solution for everybody, but we think it will enhance our league based on the ideas that kickers do have a place in fantasy and that you can get a kicker that represents long-term value.
Love the site and the good discussions!
Hi Trey, thanks for reading. Though I will admit that your post made me cry a little bit. Not one, but two kickers per team?! You’re going the wrong way! But if your league is happy with it, then by all means, go for it!
It would be interesting to hear how many teams start week 1 and end the playoffs with the exact same two kickers on their roster. Even with a fairly depleated (since 20+ kickers are on rosters) free agent pool, I bet there will still be a fair amount of turnover as the kickers that “should” produce don’t.
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for the reply, Jacob. I should mention that I really enjoyed the article. I’m sure you cringed at the idea of rostering two kickers! Ha. But I think the methodology I described above eliminates some of the evils of kickers. One complaint on this thread is that kickers take up roster spots that would be better used on developmental guys at the more important positions. With this method, they don’t have that negative effect. As a league we decide what we want roster sizes to be, not including the kicker position, and then we add two kicker only roster spots to that number. By having kicker only roster spots you prevent a kicker from taking the roster spot of a young RB or WR etc.
Knowing the guys in my league my guess is that they will each have one kicker that they want to keep long-term and they will not change him out for the entire season and beyond barring serious injury. I do expect the second required kicker roster spot for each team to have very high turnover. This is merely hypothesis at this point. I too am interested to see how league owners handle the new feature.
Thanks again for your good work!
Although I agree with the article, fantasy football relies heavily on luck already with matchups, how defenses choose to play, and many other things, so why not keep one more aspect of that luck in the game. In my auction league, guys always pay more than $1 on a kicker, which in a draft must be like drafting them in the second or third last rounds, instead of the last round. Let those guys do it and draft whoever falls to you and if you can, drop him, then pick up the guy who turns out to be the #1 kicker for the year.
Your missing the big thing.
The kicker is the one wildcard each week. You can do your research and rankings on every other position but the kicker points are always a wild card in the line-ups and make the games that much more exciting.
Your actually watching Monday night games because you have John Karney and your down 11 points a completely different way. Rooting for fg’s on the edge of your seat. Why would you want to get rid of that? Of course it’s quirky and you can lose games over it but it adds another element to watching a football game.
Not missing anything. That was talked about in the article in the reasons people want to keep kickers:
3) Kickers add luck to my fantasy games.
If you really wanted “luck” to be the governing factor for your fantasy team, you would draw the names of players you were drafting from a hat and flip a coin every time you were made a trade offer. The whole reason we spend the time that we do is to make educated choices and remove as much luck as possible.
Sorry but I disagree with almost all of this article! Sounds like someone not wanting to manage another element to the world of fantasy sports! Kickers have their place not only in the real world but also the fantasy world!
