The Diaries of a Kicker-Drafting Guru-  08/05/12

The Diaries of a Kicker-Drafting Guru

You’re entering the final rounds of your fantasy draft and your confidence couldn’t be higher. You lucked out with the 3^rd overall pick and gladly selected Ray Rice, jumped at the opportunity of drafting Michael Vick when he dropped to the 6^th Round, and while you may have reached for San Francisco’s Defense late in the 8^th Round, you love the fact that you have the best defense in the league playing for you. All of your positions are filled except for one (hopefully): the Kicker. You’ve invested so much time prepping for your draft, answering tough questions like Brees vs. Brady, Fred Jackson vs. C.J. Spiller, and if anyone on the Jaguars aside from MJD is even worth looking at. But when it comes to Kickers you find yourself lost. You didn’t do the research because come on, it’s a kicker were talking about. You look at your Sports Illustrated magazine, but ultimately you make a pick based on your gut, and next thing you know, “Welcome to the team, Matt Bryant.”

I’m here to help you pick the kicker you really want. But before we get to that I have to clear the air on a key issue:

Do we really need to have kickers in a fantasy league?

The diehards already know the answer to this…of course we do!!! Fantasy football in its current state covers every aspect of the game, from offense to defense to special teams. Receivers and Running Backs get points for return touchdowns, quarterbacks get credited for 2-point conversions, and defenses even get credited for points allowed. Remove kickers and you are removing a very important aspect of the game. Kickers can ultimately win or lose a game in the NFL, and likewise they should be given the opportunity to win (every Adam Vinatieri field goal ever) or lose for your team.

 (As an aside, one botched kick in particular stands out for me. In 2003, the New Orleans Saints were playing the Jacksonville Jaguars in the last game of the season with postseason hopes still alive. Trailing 20-13 with 7 seconds left at their own 25, the Saints miraculously scored on a play that later became known as the “River City Relay” and scored a touchdown with no time remaining. Saints kicker John Carney then missed the extra point and the Saints lost the game 20-19. As it turns out, the Saints would not have made the playoffs anyways, but this one was so crazy that I remember it almost 10 years later. Check it out if you don’t believe me!)

Back to my point, true, I can’t tell you that I love kickers; to be honest with you I probably wouldn’t even miss them if we took them out of fantasy football entirely, but they are here to stay and deep down we appreciate the added aspect of the game. 

(A quick personal story about important kickers can be in fantasy football. Two years ago I was up going into the Monday night game, where the Jaguars were playing the Titans. The other guy had Bironas, and late in the game he was down by less than 1 (we play with fractional points, which I love). With the score 23-3 Titans, I figure that Tennessee is going to run out the clock. Next thing I know, Chris Johnson breaks a 35 yard touchdown run, Bironas hits the extra point, and I lose by .3 points. Talk about a heartbreaker!)

The following analogy may help in highlighting my point. FX’s hit show The League, which appropriately is a show dedicated to the epic story of a fantasy football league between friends, features among others the character Dr. Andre Nozick. Andre is known on the show as the member of the league who wears ridiculous “get-ups,” the guy tries to coin catch phrases that simply never catch, and the character who is constantly ripped on by Pete, Kevin, Jenny, Ruxin, and the rest of the gang. The members of The League usually can’t stand Andre and don’t even miss him when he isn’t around, but they would ever dream of kicking him out of the league. Why? Because Andre adds an extra element to the league, namely it gives them a punching bag for all of their crude and vulgar jokes.

In our case the kicker is Andre. Sure, we could do without it and probably wouldn’t care about the absence of the kicker in fantasy football. But at the end of the day we need the kicker, because it gives us an added element we otherwise wouldn’t have. In short, the kicker, as boring as it may be, makes fantasy football more complex, more competitive, and ultimately, it makes fantasy football better. (Hope that analogy made sense. If not, you get my point and I get to promote an awesome show.)

Understanding that the kicker is an essential part of fantasy football, how do you go about drafting one? The first thing you need to realize is that drafting a kicker isn’t a matter of life and death. Last season, the difference between the #1 scoring kicker and the #20 scoring kicker was about 4.5 points per week. By comparison, the difference last year between the top fantasy RB and the 20^th ranked fantasy back was about 9.2 points per week. Putting things into perspective, screwing up this pick isn’t that bad, but as a fantasy owner you will gladly take points from wherever you can get them. Last season I botched my first two picks by drafting Michael Vick and Andre Johnson respectively, but I landed 49ers kicker David Akers (who ended up having a record setting season) and rode him to a 2^nd place finish. And you know what? I would talk up Akers every week just as much as I would talk up A.J. Green or my Michael Bush waiver-wire pickup, so much so that I almost changed my team name to David’s is Akers Long. Damn Yahoo and their 20 character-limit!

This gets me to my main point: why did I draft David Akers in the first place? Being the self anointed analyst that I was, I figured that San Francisco had great defense and a terrible offense and therefore wouldn’t score a lot of touchdowns. As a Ravens fan I’ve seen a similar script for years: Ravens’ defense forces a turnover, [Insert subpar QB here] can’t lead the Ravens into the red-zone, and finally, Matt Stover saves the day with a field goal. I had no real basis for my theory, but as most people do when they draft kickers, I went with my gut and instinct.

David Akers kicked the most field goals in NFL history last season, but was his fantasy production truly a recipient of a great defense/inept red-zone offense, or was it simply a fluke, a freak performance that I was lucky to benefit from? To answer this question, let’s sample the top fantasy kickers from last season:

1.     David Akers (San Francisco 49ers)

2.     John Kasay (New Orleans Saints)

3.     Stephen Gostkowski (New England Patriots)

4.     Sebastian Janikowski (Oakland Raiders)

5.     Dan Bailey (Dallas Cowboys)

6.     Mason Crosby (Green Bay Packers)

7.     Neil Rackers (Houston Texans)

8.     Mike Nugent (Cincinnati Bengals)

9.     Rob Bironas (Tennessee Titans)

10.  Robbie Gould (Chicago Bears)

Now, let’s see where their respective teams finished in both total offense and total defense last year:

Do these numbers tell us anything at all? Well for one thing, the top 3 offenses in football all had kickers who finished in the top ten, and 6 of the top 13 offenses featured top-10 kickers. In the 2010 season, 6 top-10 offenses featured top-10 kickers. In further comparing the above list with 2010’s top fantasy kickers, I found that there were 4 holdovers from 2010 to 2011: Akers, Rackers, Janikowski, and Crosby. Of the 8 seasons produced by these 4 players, only the 2011 Akers (26) and the 2011 Rackers (13) played for teams that didn’t have a top-ten offense. Contrary to my original belief, it seems that a top offense is a good barometer for selecting fantasy kickers.

As expected, there will be discrepancies within this theory. For example, despite having a top-ten offense in both 2010 and 2011, the New York Giants did not produce an elite fantasy kicker. In 2010, the San Diego Chargers had the #1 ranked offense AND the #1 ranked defense, yet Nate Kaeding finished 13^th overall (Even more shocking? The Chargers finished 9-7 and missed the playoffs). And of course, there is the issue of David Akers, whose offense finished an abysmal 26^th overall last season. Nonetheless, drafting a kicker has become such a crapshoot that this theory is just as good, if not better, than any gut or instinct you may feel come draft day.

Once I realized that my “Amazing Defense, Terrible Offense” theory (otherwise known as the Matt Stover theory) was not as reliable as I thought, I decided to test out another theory about fantasy kickers: the effects of kicking indoors. Many fantasy “experts” believe that kickers who play in dome stadiums are more likely to succeed. However, the statistics don’t support this claim. In 2011, only 3 of the top 10 kickers played for dome teams. In 2010 the numbers were slightly better with 4 of the kickers playing for dome teams. To debunk this theory even more, let’s analyze the following quote from KFFL: “Having at least eight games without worries of bad weather gives indoor kickers a huge advantage over a kicker who plays in an area like Chicago.” Well it turns out that Robbie Gould kicks in Chicago, and yet in the past two seasons Gould has finished 10^th and 12^th overall. In contrast, Denver is known as one of the easiest places to kick because the air is so thin, yet Broncos’ kicker Matt Prater has finished 25^th and 30^th in the past two seasons. I think it’s safe to assume that at best, kicking location makes minimal difference in a fantasy kicker’s overall production.

Heading into the 2012 season, which kickers do I have high on my draft list? Well, which teams do I think will have a top offense? I’m looking at Stephen Gostkowski, John Kasay, Mason Crosby, Matt Prater, and of course, Sebastian Janikowski and David Akers. The first three are obvious, as Brady, Brees and Rodgers will supply these kickers with enough opportunities. Despite Prater’s terrible statistics in the past two seasons, you have to realize that Peyton Manning is a significant upgrade over Kyle Orton and Tim Tebow. As previously stated, Janikowski’s Raiders have surprisingly been a top-10 offense in each of the past few seasons, and Janikowski’s ability to kick 50 yarders (which in most leagues is worth more points) puts him over the top. And as for Akers who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky…again.

by Sykeout!

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- 08/05/12