Do you upgrade a kicker if he's got a strong leg? Or is it better to simply focus on which ones should finish with the most regular NFL kicking points?
I was faced with that decision in the Fanex Draft. Because of a series of trade downs, I'm finishing my draft earlier than everyone else, so I'll be among the first to fill the kicker position.
In this league, kickers aren't graded on regular NFL kicking points (3 points for field goals and 1 for extra points). Instead, there's also an extra .1 point on field goals for every yard outside 30. A 31-yard field goal is worth 3.1 points, and a 47-yarder is worth 4.7.
With that in mind, how do you rank the top kickers on the board? Stephen Gostkowski is sure to rank among the scoring leaguers, but he's primarily an extra points guy. Phil Dawson has gone 14-15 from 50-plus yards the last two years; he's with the 49ers now, who've been a field goal factory since Jim Harbaugh showed up.
You've also got Blair Walsh and Greg Zuerlein, who showed incredible power as rookies. Walsh went 10-for-10 on field goals from 50-plus (hey, that's over 50 points right there).
But playing around with the numbers from the last two years, I decided not to give too much weight to leg strength.
Look at the chart below. It's got the top 30 kickers from last year, using the distance-weighted fantasy scoring system. In bold are the kickers who had at least 5 field goals from 50-plus yards in 2011 (so those are the guys who looked like the Walsh-Zuerlein type options a year ago at this time).
There isn't a strong correlation between maybe having a slightly strong leg and finishing with more fantasy points.
Ultimately, in this Fanex Draft, I didn't have to make any tough decisions. I was mulling whether to go with Gostkowski or Dawson as my kicker, but Gostkowski got chosen a few picks before me, so no decision required.
Coming back, I was looking at either the No. 6 defense on my board (Cincinnati) or one of the cannon-legged youngsters (Zuerlein or Walsh). Both of the young kickers got grabbed, so I selected Cincinnati.
KICKER SCORING -- Regular vs. Distance bonuses
NFL New Diff
141 178.6 37.6 Blair Walsh
153 174.9 21.9 Stephen Gostkowski
143 169.4 26.4 Matt Bryant
134 164.2 30.2 Jason Hanson
145 163.5 18.5 Lawrence Tynes
132 161.9 29.9 Justin Tucker
138 159.7 21.7 Shayne Graham
123 154.6 31.6 Connor Barth
131 150.3 19.3 David Akers
133 148.9 15.9 Matt Prater
124 146.2 22.2 Dan Bailey
116 141.0 25.0 Phil Dawson
118 140.7 22.7 Sebastian Janikowski
118 139.4 21.4 Shaun Suisham
115 139.0 24.0 Adam Vinatieri
113 133.1 20.1 Mason Crosby
118 130.7 12.7 Steven Hauschka
110 126.6 16.6 Rob Bironas
95 125.8 30.8 Greg Zuerlein
101 125.0 24.0 Ryan Succop
106 124.1 18.1 Alex Henery
100 123.5 23.5 Jay Feely
111 122.1 11.1 Garrett Hartley
102 114.9 12.9 Rian Lindell
96 112.7 16.7 Robbie Gould
93 112.3 19.3 Josh Scobee
92 110.1 18.1 Dan Carpenter
93 109.6 16.6 Nick Folk
92 106.6 14.6 Mike Nugent
84 104.1 20.1 Kai Forbath
^aEUR"Ian Allan
Fantasy News
June 10, 2013