2010 Kicker Rankings (Wed 8/18/10)
People generally have one of two mindsets when it comes to drafting Kickers for their fantasy football team: (1) take one of the “top Kickers” several rounds before the end of the draft, or (2) wait until the last round or two of your draft to take a Kicker and take “the best Kicker available” (or “any Kicker who’s available and still has a pulse”). Count me in the second group. Kickers undoubtedly differ in their innate skill levels, but the number of opportunities a Kicker’s team presents him with far outweighs the importance of the Kicker’s accuracy on 50+ yard field goals in determining his fantasy value. And predicting the number of opportunities a Kicker’s team is likely to give him is, to put it kindly, nearly impossible. The opportunity cost of taking a Kicker before the last round far outweighs the potential benefit (at least in this Sherpa’s mind).
So, if predicting Kickers’ fantasy values is a futile exercise, but you still need to pick one (or even two) for your team, what’s the best way to go about it? I suggest that you rank Kickers in the same order that you should rank teams’ offenses, by total yards (rushing + passing). There’s certainly a less-than-perfect correlation between the number of yards a team’s offense gains and the number of points it scores, and there’s also a less-than-perfect correlation between the number of points a team scores and the number of points its Kicker scores, but I firmly believe that trying to come up with a better system for ranking Kickers is a huge waste of time.
That said, here’s my ranking of Kickers for the upcoming season (which foreshadows my ranking of team offenses for the upcoming season):
- Garrett Hartley (NO)
- Mason Crosby (GB)
- David Buehler (Dal)
- Stephen Gostkowski (NE)
Kris BrownNeil Rackers (Hou)- Ryan Longwell (Min)
- Adam Vinatieri (Ind)
Shayne GrahamBilly Cundiff (Bal)- Nate Kaeding (SD)
- David Akers (Phi)
- Matt Bryant (Atl)
- Lawrence Tynes (NYG)
- John Kasay (Car)
- Mike Nugent (Cin)
- Nick Folk (NYJ)
- Josh Scobee (Jac)
- Jay Feely (Ari)
- Jeff Reed (Pit)
- Dan Carpenter (Mia)
- Rob Bironas (Ten)
- Robbie Gould (Chi)
- Graham Gano (Was)
- Jason Hanson (Det)
- Ryan Succop (KC)
- Joe Nedney (SF)
- Matt Prater (Den)
- Olindo Mare (Sea)
- Sebastian Janikowski (Oak)
- Rian Lindell (Buf)
- Connor Barth (TB)
- Phil Dawson (Cle)
- Josh Brown (StL)
Agree or disagree? Hit me with your best shot - fire away.
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