Monday, Dec. 10, 2001

Week 13 observations

Kickers — a fantasy owner’s pesky nuisance

By Steve Soucie, Contributing writer

They are the bane of my existence.

I’ve tried every formula I can think of to indicate the guys I think will be successful and maybe give me a point or two of an advantage on the opposition, and nothing works.

This year, I decided to go to the highly scientific mode of trusting my gut.

That actually worked pretty well for about 10 weeks.

I refuse to spend a high-round pick on these fickle, short, skinny people, so I often wander through what most of the experts deem a "middle of the pack" guy.

In one league I got shut out on everyone I felt good about, so I just took a blind shot in the dark and pulled Wade Richey from the pile.

For about 10 weeks, I was feeling like a genius. Richey was among the league leaders in points, and I had a solid play at the kicker position every week.

Then, just when I thought I had this pesky problem solved, Richey was demoted off the field-goal team by the Chargers and put exclusively on kickoffs, which as all fantasy football players know, is just about as productive to you as having a team’s long-snapper as your third wideout.

It just doesn’t work.

So for the time being, I’m forced to resort to using my backup kicker, the struggling Kris Brown, to provide kicking points. Much too proud to waste my weekly waiver move to pick up a better kicker, I’m stuck. And there probably isn’t a better one on the wire anyway.

In one of my other leagues, I took the exact opposite approach. Bored by the majority of the backup options at key positions, I snagged one of the NFL’s most productive kickers of the past few seasons, Indianapolis’ Mike Vanderjagt. And of course, he has not met expectations. Then I went and made the problem worse on Draft Day. After getting Vanderjagt in place and feeling I didn’t need a quality reserve, I ignored it.

Oops.

So what is the answer?

I still maintain that picking a kicker high makes about as much sense as taking a team defense in the first five rounds. Kickers, fundamentally, are all on about the same plane. Some are slightly better than others, but over the long haul a 130-point scoring kicker is only about three points better per week than the 80-point kickers that rank among the league’s lower totals for full-time kickers.

There are a few things I look for, however, especially when I need to pick up a kicker this late in the game.

1. I look for teams that have shown a moderate improvement in offense this season, such a small improvement that you might not even notice. My logic behind selecting San Diego’s kicker this season was that I figured with a new quarterback and a rookie running back, the Chargers would be more explosive on offense, but not so explosive that my kicker would be booting practically worthless extra points instead of field goals.
2. If you have no other option, go with the guy with the stronger leg. Even if he’s missing 50-plus attempts, that indicates the coaching staff believes he’s capable of making them, thus leading to more opportunities.
3. If all else fails, throw a dart at the board and hope for the best. This seems to have been my most productive approach thus far.

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