All 2010 Fantasy Football Articles | 2010 Position Rankings

Ah, the kicker. This is always the last part of our annual preview that I write because, honestly, it’s the last thing I’m thinking about on draft day. In most leagues, it doesn’t matter who your kicker is, as long as he’s decent. And if you don’t find a decent kicker on draft day, you’ll surely have an opportunity to pick one up as the season wears on.

I generally look for two things when selecting a kicker:

1. He kicks for a team with a good offense.
In each of the last three seasons, six of the top 10 fantasy kickers played for teams that finished in the top 10 in yards per game. More yards generally means more opportunities for the kicker, be it field goals or extra points. Moreover, 23/30 (77%) of the top 10 kickers over the same span have been on teams that finished in the top 15 in yards per game.

In the last three years, only three teams have had a kicker make the top 10 every season: Tennessee (4th, 4th, 2nd), New England (9th, 1st, 7th) and Green Bay (6th, 10th, 1st). Of those three, only the Patriots and the Packers made the top 10 in each season in yards per game. Tennessee was 12th in 2009, 21st in 2008 and 21st in 2007. For whatever reason, Tennessee’s strong running game coupled with a quality kicker (Rob Bironas) leads to a lot of made field goals.

Four teams — Philadelphia, Minnesota, New York Giants and Denver — have had a kicker make the top 10 in each of the last two years.

2. He kicks indoors or in a warm weather city, especially in the fantasy playoffs.
Looking at the aforementioned list of teams with consistent kicking success, nice weather has nothing to do with it. New England, Green Bay, Philadelphia, New York and Denver are hostile in December, while Tennessee is pretty iffy.

This is just a personal preference. I have been willing to give up a few points during the season if it means my kicker has nice weather to kick in during the fantasy playoffs. I don’t want to be looking at a goose egg when my guy has to go out into below freezing weather and a 32 MPH crosswind.

But, thinking about it a little more, if it comes to that — why not just change kickers? There are always guys out there on the waiver wire with good matchups, so if you have Mason Crosby and he’s about to kick in terrible weather, you have options. Looking ahead, I’m going to put more of an onus on #1 than on #2.

The most important rule to remember on draft day is that you don’t want to draft your kicker too early. A good rule of thumb is to wait until 8-10 kickers are already off the board before scooping up the best of what’s left. I’d rather use those 12th, 13th and 14th round picks on a few RB or WR flyers, the last part of my QBBC or the start of my DTBC.

With that in mind, here are a few players going in round 15 or later that look to be good values on draft day. ADP data from Antsports.com.

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All 2009 Fantasy Articles | 2009 Position Rankings

When the topic of fantasy kickers come up, it makes us feel like Allen Iverson when someone asks him about practice: “Kickers? You want to talk about kickers?”

Still, championship-caliber fantasy teams usually have a good kicker, so it is important to stay awake in the final rounds of your fantasy draft to ensure that you get someone decent.

We generally approach the kicker position with the following strategy:

1. Pick players that kick for teams with a good offense.
Good offense means touchdowns, and with TDs come extra points. Players who kick a lot of extra points are generally more consistent week-to-week than kickers who get more of their scoring from field goals. It’s better to have someone who is going to score four XPs every week than it is to have a guy that may or may not get 2-3 field goals.

2. Pick players that kick in good weather (or indoors).
There are plenty of good players who kick in bad weather. It’s fine to draft Mason Crosby or Robbie Gould, but do you really want to run them out there in Week 16 when there are 30 mph crosswinds in Green Bay or Chicago? If you want to pick a kicker and pretty much forget about the position, grab a guy that plays in warm weather or, better yet, kicks indoors. If you do pick a bad weather kicker — and we’re going to recommend two good ones — be prepared to make a change late in the season.

The top 10 offenses of 2008 belonged to the Saints, Broncos, Texans, Cardinals, Patriots, Falcons, Giants, Packers, Eagles and Panthers. Eight of those teams had kickers who finished in the top 13: Stephen Gostkowski, David Akers, John Carney, Jason Elam, Mason Crosby, Kris Brown, John Kasay and Matt Prater. The Saints had three kickers throughout the season and the Cardinals were in the bottom 10 in field goal attempts.

The other kickers in the top 13 – Rob Bironas (TEN), Rian Lindell (BUF), Matt Bryant (TB), Ryan Longwell (MIN) and Josh Brown (STL) – played for teams that fought through suspect play out of the quarterback position. These are teams that didn’t have a very dynamic offense, so they had trouble punching the ball into the endzone. Moreover, Tennessee and Minnesota were both in the top 7 in total rushing yards, while Buffalo and Tampa Bay were #14 and #15 in that category, respectively. These teams could move the ball, but they couldn’t finish off drives very well.

Keeping all of this in mind, here are a few guys that should have top 10 years but won’t cost you much on draft day. Savvy fantasy owners shouldn’t even think about the kicker position until the 15th round, so we’ll limit this list to guys that are going that late.

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