Scott Sachs of Perfect Season Fantasy Football is the winner of the Kickers portion of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll, and for that he can thank Greg Zuerlein. Zuerlein scored a league-high 158 kicking points, and Sachs ranked him a lot higher than everyone else.
Only one other expert, in fact, mentioned Zuerlein at all. Ken Valis ranked him 2nd. None of the other 18 analysts in this competition included Zuerlein in their preseason top 20.
Sachs, on the other hand, ranked him way up at 10th, allowing him to lap the field at this position, outscoring everyone by at least 2,000 points (with typical scores around 30,000).
Jody Smith (Gridiron Experts) finished in 2nd place at this position, followed by Bob Henry (FootballGuys).
Injuries (and roster moves) played more of a role at this position than in the past, with six of the top 15 preseason kickers missing significant action: Dan Bailey, Cairo Santos, Sebastian Janikowski, Dustin Hopkins, Caleb Sturgis and Josh Lambo. The way we score this competition, those who ranked such kickers highly got torched at this position.
L.A. Hale, for example, had Santos and Sturgis as two of his top 3 kickers. Those were outstanding recommendations (considering how many kicking points Harrison Butker and Jake Elliott scored for those teams) but Hale finished next-to-last at this position. He also was as high as anyone on Hopkins.
Paul Charchian was higher than everyone on three kickers, and they all missed substantial playing time: Nick Novak, Nick Folk and Andrew Franks. So Charchian finished dead last at this position. But don’t worry about him too much. He was the only expert to include Kareem Hunt in his top 20, and he’ll make up a ton of ground with that pick when we get around to grading the running backs.
Scoring for this competition is notoriously complex, with every pick by every expert graded. The higher a player is ranked, the more he counts towards the score. Stephen Gostkowski, for example, scored 156 points. Those who ranked him No. 1 received 3,900 points for that choice (156 x 25). Those who ranked him 2nd received 3,744 (156 x 124).
Such a scoring system puts a premium an identifying players who are at least going to play most of the season. In typical fantasy leagues, however, teams make waiver moves during the season. Teams owned by guys like Hale and Charchian who selected dud kickers presumably would replace them along the way, and there were plenty of great kickers coming out of the woodwork this year – Butker and Elliott, for example, weren’t even on rosters at the start of the season.
To try to account for that dynamic, we also score the competition in an alternative way (originally suggested by Chris Liss of RotoWire). In Waiver Wire scoring, there’s a safety net at each position. You can’t do worse than the best guy after all of the starters are gone. Figuring on a 12-team league, we’re looking primarily at the 12 best kickers. Assume those guys were all chosen or obtained, and fantasy teams would still have a shot at getting their hands on the 13th-best kicker, who scored a reasonable 119 points – not zero like Andrew Franks and Roberto Aguayo. Working under the assumption that everyone could have used waiver moves and trades to finish with 119 points at the position, the focus then becomes who did the best job of identifying those who scored more than 119 points.
Using such a scoring system (and tossing out the 36,890 points obtained by selecting 20 dead guys) Sachs still comes out No. 1, outscoring everyone by almost 400 points. The 2nd- and 3rd-place finishers move down to 15th and 8th, and Tony Holm (Fantasy Sharks) moves up to 2nd from 4th.
In Waiver Wire Scoring, Ken Valis is the biggest climber, moving up from 17th to 4th. Two others move up significantly: Charchian (20th to 11th) and Sam Hendricks (14th to 7th).
EXPERTS POLL KICKERS (standard scoring) | ||
---|---|---|
Analyst | Company | Points |
Scott Sachs | Perfect Season FF | 32,787 |
Jody Smith | Gridiron Experts | 30,977 |
Bob Henry | FootballGuys | 30,754 |
Tony Holm | Fantasy Sharks | 30,712 |
Ryan McDowell | Dynasty League Football | 30,707 |
Justin Eleff | Fantasy Index Podcast | 30,707 |
Alan Satterlee | Charlotte Observer | 30,632 |
Chris Liss | RotoWire | 30,345 |
Ryan Murphy | East Berlin, Pa. | 30,312 |
Scott Pianowski | Yahoo Sports | 30,255 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | Pro Football Focus | 30,206 |
Michael Nazarek | Fantasy Football Mastermind | 29,916 |
Mike Clay | ESPN | 29,910 |
Sam Hendricks | Extra Point Press | 29,512 |
David Dorey | The Huddle | 29,400 |
Cory Bonini | USA Today Fantasy Sports | 29,138 |
Ken Valis | Gaithersburg, Md. | 29,095 |
Lenny Pappano | Draft Sharks | 28,538 |
L.A. Hale | Fantasy Gives | 28,104 |
Paul Charchian | LeagueSafe | 27,300 |
EXPERTS POLL KICKERS (Waiver Wire Scoring) | ||
---|---|---|
Analyst | Points | Std Rk |
Scott Sachs | 3,347 | 1 |
Tony Holm | 2,976 | 4 |
Justin Eleff | 2,953 | 6 |
Ken Valis | 2,823 | 17 |
Ryan McDowell | 2,771 | 5 |
Mike Clay | 2,763 | 13 |
Sam Hendricks | 2,750 | 14 |
Bob Henry | 2,728 | 3 |
Michael Nazarek | 2,710 | 12 |
Alan Satterlee | 2,676 | 7 |
Paul Charchian | 2,663 | 20 |
Ryan Murphy | 2,661 | 9 |
David Dorey | 2,633 | 15 |
Chris Liss | 2,626 | 8 |
Jody Smith | 2,602 | 2 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 2,572 | 11 |
Scott Pianowski | 2,565 | 10 |
L.A. Hale | 2,526 | 19 |
Cory Bonini | 2,483 | 16 |
Lenny Pappano | 2,481 | 18 |
We will crown an overall champion, totaling up the points of all six positions. With one third of the positions scored (albeit the two least important positions) Sachs and Smith are the leaders.
The top 11 in this competition win spots in the Mock Draft league that appears in the magazine (with the No. 1 finishing getting his choice of which draft position he would like).
OVERALL LEADERBOARD (thru 2 positions) | |||
---|---|---|---|
Analyst | PK | Def | Points |
Scott Sachs | 1 | 14 | 64,294 |
Jody Smith | 2 | 4 | 63,803 |
Justin Eleff | 6 | 5 | 63,474 |
Ryan McDowell | 5 | 6 | 63,210 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 11 | 3 | 63,103 |
Mike Clay | 13 | 1 | 62,988 |
Bob Henry | 3 | 10 | 62,590 |
Tony Holm | 4 | 11 | 62,522 |
Chris Liss | 8 | 12 | 62,126 |
Alan Satterlee | 7 | 16 | 62,051 |
Ken Valis | 17 | 2 | 62,022 |
Ryan Murphy | 9 | 13 | 61,870 |
Sam Hendricks | 14 | 8 | 61,551 |
Michael Nazarek | 12 | 15 | 61,374 |
Scott Pianowski | 10 | 20 | 61,279 |
Lenny Pappano | 18 | 7 | 61,012 |
David Dorey | 15 | 19 | 60,473 |
Cory Bonini | 16 | 18 | 60,376 |
L.A. Hale | 19 | 17 | 59,475 |
Paul Charchian | 20 | 9 | 59,227 |