Note: This column originally ran in November 2018, and was nominated for Fantasy Football Column of the Year by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association. But that’s not why we’re re-running it. We commissioned a wonderfully talented artist named Alex Miller to recreate the column in comic format and she did an incredible job.
So please enjoy the timeless #bankickers championing by Jake, now accompanied by Ms. Miller’s take on this tomfoolery.
By now, you know that I have been championing #BanKickers for my entire career. Hey, it’s why I started selling the t-shirts after all. I’m happy to say that it appears as if the movement is gaining a ton of steam thanks to tweets like this:
Next year, should ESPN’s standard fantasy football game (the default version) have kickers or no? I’d suggest an extra flex spot. But this is just yes or no on kickers. Do you enjoy playing with them?
— Matthew Berry (@MatthewBerryTMR) November 26, 2018
Eliminating kickers in the Yahoo game is my top priority. Let’s make this the industry standard. https://t.co/wLCsHFCtzr
— Brad Evans (@YahooNoise) November 26, 2018
It’s time to make my dream a reality. Full steam ahead!
When did this start for me?
Advertisement
Back in 2007, Rob Bironas hung 29 points on the board (some leagues even more) thanks to eight field goals and two extra points. Bironas, by the way, was the preseason K21 off the board and was on nearly no one’s team.
For reference, in 2018 Todd Gurley has reached that number just twice, Saquon Barkley once and Tyreek Hill is the only WR1 to reach that number or even come close (he actually topped it twice with 29.3 a third time, while the rest, zero).
You get the point. And yes, that is an absurd anomaly, but that’s exactly what kickers are… absurd. Would you like to guess who has the highest single game kicker score this year? I’ll wait. Nope, not Stephen Gostkowski, not Greg Zuerlein, no Harrison Butker… nope… Jason Myers. Fitting since I picture a spawn of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers when I hear, “Jason Myers.” Myers had seven field goals and three extra points in Week 6 against the Colts — for 24 fantasy points.
Want to now guess how many other games in which Myers had double-digit points? Just one. Week 1, where the Jets inexplicably gave him six XP attempts. Outside of that game Myers has topped seven points once and had five or fewer points five times. Fun stuff, huh?
For owners who try to predict seasonal success from kickers, it’s a fool’s errand. Ask those who spent a high pick on Justin Tucker last year, or those who owned Gostkowski in the past as he racked up high season totals but left owners frustrated when the Patriots scored 4-5 touchdowns with no field goal attempts any given week.
If you took the Top 12 kickers based on ADP each year, their average finish checks in around 10 spots lower. That means, on average, the third kicker taken, in ADP, finishes 13th. If we eliminate injuries, we still get a difference of 8+ spots. Also, on average, fewer than half the kickers taken as a K1 fail to finish as such (and land outside the Top 12 when the dust settles).
Advertisement
We can also look at the number of weeks that kickers finish inside the K1 range (and this is a great practice for any position – Frank Gore finishing as a RB2 overall for years meant little because he made it on volume and health, rarely cracking the Top 15 at running back any given week). The majority of the time, we rarely have a kicker hit K1 status in 10 or more weeks, and often it’s just 3-5 who have eight-plus weeks hitting the Top 12.
I don’t think I need to keep explaining that kickers are random with a high variance. But I want to at least respect the counter-argument that you can stream, or there is a level of predictability.
Let’s say you can stream by choosing the correct factors each week. The problem? This is an argument for daily fantasy football, not seasonal. You don’t have access to all 32 kickers every week. There are 11 other kickers off the board, and then there are byes, kickers who are so terrible they could lose their job, etc. Even if you tried to plan ahead, no one in their right mind is going to stash a second kicker for matchup play and/or blow a high FAAB amount or waiver spot to get a kicker for a one-week matchup.
Seasonal streaming for kickers is dead before we even start. It’s not feasible. But let’s take the DFS side of it for the sake of argument, and say for a minute that seasonal streaming is feasible.
The argument for DFS kickers (which DraftKings and FanDuel don’t use… HINT. HINT!) is that you can use certain factors to find the right kickers each week. The main factors are the implied team total (if the team scores more, the kicker should have more chances and points) and home versus away.
I pulled 10 weeks of Vegas odds this season to get implied totals. Here’s the data.
IMPLIED TOTAL
You can see that the average kicker score does increase for the most part (with a strange dip in the middle), but from the extreme low (6.6) to the extreme high (8.2), we’re talking a difference of 1.6 points. If you look at the standard deviations, the variance is actually higher at the top (meaning the range of scores is broader), and interestingly, the lowest max scores come from middle Implied Totals. Basically, very little correlation and clear pointing to high variance.
Advertisement
Okay, let’s move on.
IMPLIED TOTAL with HOME (“H”) vs. VISITOR (“V”)
Again, the average does increase. Again, the data doesn’t have a strong indication outside of the highest implied scores. First off, the Visitors outscored the Home teams by a large margin in the 27.5+ range. In fact, overall the Home kickers averaged 7.0 with a 3.9 STDEV while Visitors were 6.8 and 3.6. Back to this table, that middle dip is even more evident, and the Visitors outscored the Home kickers in half the score ranges.
Let’s include one more table.
IMPLIED TOTAL to KICKER SCORES
This table takes Implied Totals and then shows the percent of times a kicker scores in that range. For the most part, it’s a bell curve with the majority of scores falling in the 7.0-8.0 range and even broadened out to 5.0-10.0.
CONCLUSION
If there is any correlation to using totals and home versus away, it’s slight and not worth chasing, especially in seasonal. There are plenty of scores that fly in the face of using the factors often listed.
However, I don’t want you to solely focus on numbers. I’m sure someone out there can and will spin some numbers arguing for kickers. Even if some are out there, that’s DFS and not seasonal. Again, you don’t have access to the entire player pool each week.
In the end, this is about fantasy and enjoyment. Given the frustration, variance, etc., kickers are simply not enjoyable. There is never any good from them. You curse them when they fail (often), hate them when your opponent has some rando go off for 16 points, and you can’t even enjoy when you’re the owner of those 16 points because you know how much it stinks to be beaten by luck.
Now, I’m not just here to say #BanKickers and sail off into the sunset. As has been part of my entire movement, it’s to replace the kicker position. Add a second Flex spot and get deeper into the player pool.
Advertisement
There is no reason for Mohamed Sanu to be available in over 50 percent of leagues. Mike Williams shouldn’t be sitting out there for 60 percent of owners to pick up and stream as a great Week 12 play. Adam Humphries is owned in just 30 percent; Doug Martin is available in over 50 percent too. And the list goes on.
Dig deeper into the player pool and put your knowledge to the test. Heck, those players have that ownership, and that’s after accounting for the talent you have wasting away on your bench (i.e. watching D.J. Moore have another good game on your fantasy pine). I should never get a question like this: “Should I wait for Melvin Gordon or start Marlon Mack and Joe Mixon to avoid the risk?”
WUT?! Those are two Top 15 running backs. Dig deeper, people!
Ideally, I’d like to see everyone add a SuperFlex (typical Flex with the ability to start a quarterback). It adds value back to the quarterback position without the harsh penalty of 2QB leagues where byes and injuries can lead to a zero for the position.
No matter what, play what you want to play. If you want to go PPR scoring? Fine. I don’t like it, but that’s another discussion for another day (heads up: I will be doing an entire offseason piece on scoring, rosters, etc. and my recommendations… including revamping DST scoring, since it needs it… bad!). If you want SuperFlex, go for it. If you don’t want to start three WR and/or want to turn the TE spot into a WR/TE position (love it), do that too.
And if you really want to play with kickers, hey, it’s your sanity on the line.
For years, it’s been clear to me and the data (and now Matthew and Brad are seeing the light) that #BanKickers is the only way — and I have the t-shirts to prove it.
And here is the #BanKickers comic, by Alex Miller
Top Image: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports; Comic art by Alex Miller
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57lXBscmhjZH9xfpBoZ3BnYWh8qr%2BMoqtmrJmism7AzmaZmqZdoLakt8SrqmaeoqS6brLAp6uaq6lis7C705uYpaRf