Fantasy Football: A Plan for Drafting Kickers in 2009

Drafting a kicker for a fantasy team is akin to using toilet paper; you have to do it, but it's not a big deal.

Often times, the position is nudged aside, usually all the way to the last round in fantasy drafts.

And for good reason.

Last year, the No. 1 rated kicker at year's end, Stephen Gostkowski, put up 155 fantasy points.

The No. 10 rated kicker, Matt Bryant, scored 130 points.

25 points.

Over 16 games.

You do the math.

Let's do a more extreme comparison.

The No. 25 kicker last season, Jason Hanson of the lowly Lions, managed 109 points.

Now it's a whopping 46 point difference.

Still over 16 games.

The stats suggest that it's not so whopping, however.

Do the math and, had you had Gostkowski, you would have enjoyed a robust 2.8 points a game more than if you had Hanson.

People have had strategies when it comes to taking a kicker.  One such strategy says that if a kicker is on a high-powered offense, then he will benefit, because if the offense scores, he too will score. 

However, if the offense is good, then more likely than not, the offense will score touchdowns, which of course result in measly one point extra points; and not field goals, which is what you want.

• Neil Rackers, No. 15 kicker (on high-powered offense)

Conversely, if you draft a kicker on a bad team because you think that the offense is too bad to actually score a touchdown, but good enough to get the ball into the opposition's side of the field, to hopefully result in a field goal, well, that hasn't worked out much consistently either.

• Jason Hanson, No. 25 kicker (on terrible team)

I remember when looking at my projected total for the upcoming week, (which is a joke by the way, the projections are ALWAYS WAY too high), and seeing that my kicker, whoever he was, (the name escapes me), was projected to score 20 points.  Needless to say, I quickly fell out of favor with the so called "projected points device."

The point is that drafting kickers is a crapshoot. There is absolutely no consistency when it comes to the position. Using your time trying to find a "sleeper" kicker should be illegal.

You're better off just randomly selecting one. Remember, you can always easily drop him during the season if he performs poorly and grab another.