Does it make sense to draft the top kicker in the draft in the 9th, 10th or 11th round? Or are kickers just a generic and luck-driven product? Ian Allan explores.
Stephen Gostkowski and Phil Dawson look like the best of the kicker prospects. With the way those offenses move the ball, they might wind up scoring about 150 points.
But should you use a mid-round pick to draft one?
If they wind up doing what they're expected to do, then yes. Looking at the last 10-15 years, when a kicker finishes No. 1 in scoring, he tends to outscore the bulk of the other kickers by 20-30 points.
If you were to assume that if he wait until the last couple of rounds before selecting your kicker, you'd still be able to finish 10th in scoring at the position, then the No. 1 kicker tends to outscore the No. 10 kicker by about 31 points per year (over the last 15 seasons).
But just because most people expect Gostkowski, Dawson and Matt Bryant to be the No. 1 kicker, that doesn't necessarily mean it will go down that way. In fact, using the historical data, the No. 1 kicker seldom has a big year.
Look at the chart below. It uses the top preseason kicker, using the results of our in-magazine Experts Poll, and measures his actual production against the kicker who ended up finishing 10th in said year. So this battle is the expected No. 1 against the actual No. 10.
Surprisingly (to me) in only four of the last 15 years did the No. 1 kicker outscore the No. 10 kicker by more than 10 points.
By that measure, it doesn't make much sense to be the guy who pulls the trigger first on a kicker.
| TOP-RATED KICKERS SINCE 1998 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Pts | #10 | Diff | |
| 1998 | Mike Hollis | 108 | 115 | -7 |
| 1999 | Gary Anderson | 103 | 113 | -10 |
| 2000 | Mike Vanderjagt | 121 | 111 | 10 |
| 2001 | Mike Vanderjagt | 125 | 112 | 13 |
| 2002 | Mike Vanderjagt | 103 | 115 | -12 |
| 2003 | David Akers | 114 | 112 | 2 |
| 2004 | Mike Vanderjagt | 119 | 114 | 5 |
| 2005 | Adam Vinatieri | 100 | 113 | -13 |
| 2006 | Adam Vinatieri | 113 | 115 | -2 |
| 2007 | Adam Vinatieri | 118 | 118 | 0 |
| 2008 | Stephen Gostkowski | 148 | 127 | 21 |
| 2009 | Stephen Gostkowski | 125 | 118 | 7 |
| 2010 | Nate Kaeding | 109 | 114 | -5 |
| 2011 | Nate Kaeding | 0 | 126 | -126 |
| 2012 | Stephen Gostkowski | 153 | 124 | 29 |
| 2013 | Matt Bryant | ? | ? | ? |
--Ian Allan