Kickers and Fantasy Football
posted in Fantasy Football |
Do not be the guy that drafts Robbie Gould too early in 2007
We recently released a new feature on the War Room Report - our group big board rankings for the 2007 Fantasy Season. We will be updating the rankings again as the season approaches to help with your fantasy drafts.
We have some talented fantasy writers here at the War Room Report and will be writing and blogging about various topics.
One of the things that is often separates top, consistent fantasy owners from the pack is an understanding of value in the draft. Even if you knew that Marques Colston was going to have the season he did, drafting him in Round 4 last year would have been a mistake - he would have been available in Round 14. This phenomenon is most evident in the drafting of fantasy kickers. Some owners routinely waste high picks on kickers and will point to the outstanding season he had the year before as evidence that it is a valuable pick. However, two factors make this an incorrect theory.
- Kickers, since they rely on the team they play on for scoring chances, are wildly inconsistent in final scoring numbers
- The variance between the #1 kicker and the top replacement kicker (the best kicker left on the free agent wire, #13 in most leagues) is minimal.
Let’s examine the first statement. The top 3 fantasy kickers in 2005 were Jay Feely (148 pts), Neil Rackers (140), and Shayne Graham (131). How did the three fair in 2006? Feely dropped by 27.7% down to 107 points, but it was through no fault of his own. Feely actually completed a higher percentage of FGs in 2006 than he did in 2005 (85.2% vs 83.3%). Rackers fell over by 20.7% (to 116), though it was partially to blame as he made a much lower percentage of field goals. The drop of Graham was more subtle - 12.2% versus 2005, but he too, fell from being a top 3 fantasy kicker to 9th.
The “best” kickers in the league do not necessarily equate to fantasy success. Let’s look at Adam Vinatieri’s numbers:
2006: 113 points
2005: 100 points
2004: 141 points
Anyone that drafted Vinatieri in 2005 because he was the “best kicker” and had scored 141 points the year before wasted a high draft pick.
Let’s address the second point. The difference between last year’s #1 kicker (Robbie Gould of the Bears, who went undrafted in many leagues) and the #13 kicker (Josh Brown) was 32 points…. or less than 2 points a game. So even if you could successfully predict kicking stats prior to the season, is that 2 point advantage really worth drafting a kicker in the first 10-12 rounds of your draft? You could have missed out on the chance to grab a guy like Travis Henry in 2006 or Willie Parker in 2005 to take a kicker. Both Rackers and Vinatieri were taken, on average, in the first 8 rounds of 2006 drafts. This was before 2006 fantasy studs like Marion Barber and the aforementioned Henry.
So when it comes to your 2007 fantasy drafts… be smart and wait until the last round or two to draft a kicker. Your trophy case will thank you.
