With each season, the topic of kickers in fantasy football draws more attention. Many believe the position should be omitted, while others are reluctant to make the change. We break down the debate of whether or not you should get rid of kickers in your leagues. Here at Fantasyshed, we have nixed the projections/rankings for kickers during the 2016 season.
Why you should keep them:
Because you’re a traditionalist and afraid of change.
Why you should get rid of them:
You can probably assume where I stand on the topic, based on the reasons why you should keep them. And believe me, I had to think really hard for that sentence. It’s quite simple honestly; you don’t need them. As much as fantasy football incorporates chance, luck and unforeseen circumstances, make no mistake about it, there is a great deal of skill involved. However, there is no skill involved in drafting a kicker in the last round of your draft just because you have to. Or putting a kicker in your lineup and having him score anywhere from 0-25 points (depending on your league settings). It’s not skill. It’s not luck. It’s just random. We shouldn’t be winning or losing games based on randomness. We put too much into our teams to lose because Mason Crosby hits a 35 yard field goal at the end of the game. Randomness. Take this quote from a Foxsports.com article written by By Ryan Fowler, Jake Westrich & Zach Malosh, in which extensive data analysis was done on the matter:
It’s also worth highlighting how often fantasy kickers produced above and below the 4-12 FP range, which, to reiterate, occurred 70 percent of the time. Fantasy kickers scored fewer than 4 (four) fantasy points in 277 games, while 13-or-more fantasy points were scored 306 times during the five-season sample size. After you do the math, fantasy kickers produced 13-or-more and 4-or-fewer fantasy points six times per week – on average. When you consider that at least 12-of-32 fantasy kickers are owned on any given week, these six occurrences would definitely impact some owners for better or for worse
With the heavy increase of daily fantasy, many of the top sites have already done away with the kicker position. Even the NFL wants to do away with them! The league keeps taking more and more steps towards minimizing the position. Can a player of another position also give you that same range of scoring in any given week? Absolutely. However it isn’t nearly as frequent. Again, a quote from the aforementioned article:
However, the bottom line is – as it pertains to fantasy football wins and losses – why would you want random kicker production to carry so much weight after hours of draft prep and in-season waiver wire / starting roster fine tuning?
The answer in unison should be – “Goodbye, fantasy kicker.”
Have you ever researched kickers prior to your draft? I didn’t think so. Do yourself and your league a favor; Take the randomness out of the game. Use that roster spot for an extra flex, or bench spot. Give your league members the chance to grab that additional sleeper. Go ahead. Do it. KICKem to the Curb.
