Fantasy Football Kickers. What’s the Point?

I don’t remember much vividly about my first fantasy football draft.  I vaguely remember thinking to myself quarterbacks, running backs, wide outs, tight ends, defensive players and team defense!  I’m in! I have a feeling I’m going to be for life!  Oh and we start a kicker too.  Fantasy Football Kickers.  What’s the point?  I thought to myself but didn’t dwell on it.

My first draft where our league splurged and bought a draft board, now that draft, I remember that like it was yesterday.  Twelve guys cramped in my apartment’s minuscule kitchen with not enough wall space to affix the 3′ x 4′ work of art in the making to. Nah, we’re not letting my lack of financial stability and subsequent lack of square footage ruin our draft. I remember thinking at least something along those lines.

Using electrical tape we bound the board to my kitchen cabinets above my sink, the cabinet handles were poking through the paper and more than half the board was dangling above my sink. Didn’t matter,  life was good.  A full size draft board with its colorful stickers was a game changer. Never again would any league that I had a say in not use such a beautiful piece of artistry displayed for all to admire and more importantly, scrutinize.

Every last one of us had our tattered fantasy magazines purchased at our local grocery stores and 7-11’s  sometimes upwards of three months prior.  Those days were brutal information wise, but I loved them.  It was up to me to research and watch as many games as possible if I wanted to excel at my new favorite pastime.  Shout out to USA Today, those monthly fantasy football special edition papers were the only up to date info I could find for a few years.  I don’t think I found out about those until 2004ish.

Fantasy football information in 2001 came in slow, like sending a letter slow  opposed to fantasy football information now that gets to us with mega speed.  So much has changed, almost all for the better.  There’s still one tradition lingering around that’s worn and unimaginative and I’m going to do my best to show you what I mean.

2001 was not our first live draft.  Our league was established in 1997. 2001 was special of course due to the aforementioned crookedly hung artwork crudely stuck to my cabinets.  It was also the first year I noticed something that flew under my radar previously. The only person not drafting a kicker was me. Why would I? Why would I waste a pick on a position with so little consistency from one season to the next. I saw no statistical advantage in spending a pick on Jeff Wilkins when I could instead grab a young RB with upside or a wide out I convinced myself was, “about to be a “beast, dude!”

I have maintained this strategy for every draft where selecting a kicker isn’t a requirement and I’ve noticed more and more people doing the same.

Fast Forward to June, 2018. I bring up the idea of scrapping kickers all together in my longest running league’s group chat.  The league is a dynasty league.  It’s composed of very knowledgeable owners that despite most of us being close to 40 aren’t automatically opposed to change.  In regard to this matter they weren’t having it.  Immediately the wolves came out, 11-1 against me.  I wasn’t bothered by their verbal jabs in the slightest. I was up for the challenge.  I knew I had numbers on my side and numbers don’t lie.

In 2001 when I wasn’t drafting kickers I had already looked into how likely a kicker was to repeat seasons as the league’s #1 overall kicker, or K1.  I also looked into exactly how many points on average separated the #2 kicker with the #12 kicker. If you’ve followed along so far you could make an estimated guess that it’s not many. In fact, most years less than a field goal per game separates the top 15 kickers.

Since 2001 there has been just 4 kickers to finish the season the K1 multiple times.

Jay Feely and Jeff Wilkins, each led the league twice in the early 2000’s.  David Akers went back to back in 2010 and 2011. The next guy who I like to refer to as ‘Outlier #1″ led the league in 2008 then proceeded to dominate his field four years in a row. From 2012-2015, Stephen Gostkowski was in the zone. Leading the league all four years. Unfortunately it didn’t really give any of us much of an advantage.

Kickers since 2001 who finished K1 more than once:

• Stephen Gostkowski 2008, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 (12 eligible seasons)
• David Akers 2010, 2011 (13 eligible seasons)
• Jay Feely 2002, 2005 (14 eligible seasons)
• Jeff Wilkins 2001, 2003 (7 eligible seasons)

Time for me to make your brain hurt a little. 

For argument and simplicity sake let’s say each team only used 1 kicker per season over the 17 season span from 2001 to 2017. 

32 kickers per season eligible to finish K1.

Multiply the 32 eligible kickers by 17 seasons and you get 544 total kickers eligible to finish as the K1.

We know that Akers, Feely, Wilkins and Stephen “Outlier #1” Gostkowski’s combine for 11 K1 seasons.

544 minus 11 equals our new K1 eligible kicker total, 533

533 K’s w/o more than 1 K1 season divided by 17 seasons equals 31.4

31.4 divided by 32 equals 98% 

98% of kickers that have kicked since 2001 have not finished the K1 more than once.

This is a little confusing but it illustrates just how unpredictable the position is from year to year.

During Gostkowski’s four years of dominance he averaged less than 2.4 points per game more than the #17 overall kicker across that time frame. That’s not an anomaly. In fact that’s the norm. Over the 17 seasons of data I’ve collected the #1 kicker and the #16 kicker average a separation of just 2.5 points per game.

Greg Zuerlein last year was a freak, if you had Greg the Leg (I prefer Young G-Z) I’m sure you remember he was money when he played.  On the surface his 11.3 points per game qualify as the highest single season average this millennium.  Unfortunately for Zuerlein, he only played 14 games last season rendering his potential record null and void.

Take Zuerlein, Harrison Butker and Jake Elliot out of the 2017 equation since all three failed to play 16 games and you are left with a top 12 seperated by just 2.5 points per game.  Remove our buddy, “Outlier #1” and that number drops to 1.8 points per game of seperation between K2 and K12.

2017 Top 12 Kickers (16 games played)

1. 9.8 ppg.  Gostkowski (Outlier #1)
2. 9.1 ppg.  Gould
3. 8.9 ppg.  Boswell
4. 8.8 ppg.  Tucker
5. 8.8 ppg.  Lutz
6. 8.6 ppg.  Bryant
7. 8.5 ppg.  Succop
8. 8.1 ppg.  Forbath
9. 8.1 ppg.  Prater
10. 7.6 ppg.  Gano
11. 7.4 ppg.  Dawson
12. 7.3 ppg.  Haushka

This is a snapshot of what every season going back to 2001 looks like.  The kicker position in fantasy football is the virtual version of cab ride.  Everyone automatically sits in the back seat but no one really knows why.  Year in year out we start kickers that end up a wash points-wise and we don’t question why.

There isn’t a less strategically pondered position in our lineups.  The kicker process goes like this.  A quick waiver wire search early in the season will show the K4 is available at which point you scoop him up until his bye week.  Once that bye hits, former K4 is a goner.   Scour the wire again, add the best available kicker, rock with him for a few weeks, rinse and repeat.

To be fair, I’m not being completely honest.  I did once strategically approach the kicker position. Last season there was a blizzard in Buffalo so I dropped Carpenter Sunday morning grabbed the best available kicker and never looked back.

If you made it this far, I appreciate your resilience.  You probably haven’t thought this much about the kicker position and it’s fantasy relevance in your life.  It’s an important discussion to have in my opinion.  Kickers need to be a thing of the past.  I have seen a few leagues that aren’t including kickers from the league’s inception.  I applaud all the progressive commissioners out there doing this.  You men and women are well ahead of your time.

Back to the 11 on 1 verbal beat down I received when I first presented the idea to my league mates. I hit them with the numbers and like me when my daughter gives me the pouty face, they folded.

The 2018 season will mark the first time our league will no longer have kickers on our rosters, and for good reason. They’re a wash. Spread the word about the extreme parody and lack of strategy involved when approaching the kicker position and maybe 5 to 10 years from now kickers will completely phased out of this pastime we love so much.