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Sports Illustrated

Sport

Michael Fabiano

Fantasy Football Rankings: Don’t Forget the Kickers

Fantasy football Football Justin Tucker Daniel Carlson Tyler Bass

Kickers. They’re the most disrespected players in all of fantasy football. Heck, some folks out there want to eliminate them from our great game altogether. “The position is too hard to predict!” the naysayers proclaim, Or they’ll complain about the lack of consistent production kickers provide from one season to the next.

Boo-hoo! Cry me a river.

Fantasy football isn’t easy to predict. Even Nostradamus would be shaking his head at NFL predictions gone bad! Who predicted a top-five quarterback finish from Geno Smith last season? Did anyone predict Jonathan Taylor’s bust of a 2022 season? You knew Josh Jacobs would win the rushing title, right? Oh, and didn’t we all expect Russell Wilson to be a top-10 fantasy quarterback in Denver?

It’s not just the kickers, folks.

Furthermore, I would disagree that there is no consistency at the position. We have seen some great kickers in fantasy, including Adam Vinatieri, Stephen Gostkowski, Jason Elam, Robbie Gould and Mason Crosby (to name just a few). We also have some very productive and reliable kickers in the current fantasy era.

Justin Tucker has been a top-10 kicker for what seems like forever. He’s finished no worse than eighth in points at the position in the last four years. Daniel Carlson has been a top three kicker in three straight seasons, and Tyler Bass has finished no worse than 10th in that time. Nick Folk has been a top six kicker in two straight years, and the Cowboys have had a top-five kicker in two of the last three.

Heck, that’s more reliable players than we’ve seen at the tight end position!

That brings me to my next point: Beyond Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews and George Kittle, which tight ends have been reliable for fantasy managers in recent seasons? Darren Waller has fallen off due to injuries in recent years, and it’s almost always been impossible to trust Evan Engram from one season to the next. Kyle Pitts, you say? He’s been mostly a dud in his first two years in the league.

The tight ends were so bad at times last season that the weekly top-10s were the who’s who of who the hell is that? Heck, a quarterback who also (sometimes) plays tight end, Taysom Hill, finished ninth in points despite playing just 323 offensive snaps!

To continue our look at these two positions, consider that the top five kickers from a season ago scored more points than tight ends No. 6-11. That’s right … five kickers would have been No. 1 fantasy tight ends last season based on points. We also had more kickers score 100-plus points (26) than tight ends (22).

By comparison, the best kicker, Tucker, would have ranked 29th at running back and 43rd at wide receiver based on his 160 points. That means the top fantasy kickers would have been high-end starting tight ends but would barely sniff flex starter value as runners and would have been bench fodder as wideouts.

The point here is simple. Can kickers be tough to predict? Yes, but so can all the offensive skill positions. And if we’re looking at the numbers, an argument can be made that kickers score more points and are more reliable than tight ends.

So, don’t eliminate them from your leagues. You’re not booting tight ends, right? If you want the kickers to be a bit more valuable, create scoring opportunities with bonuses for longer field goals. Or better yet, use fractional scoring so, for example, a kicker who makes a 63-yard field goal receives 6.3 points.

After all, you can’t have fantasy FOOT-ball without kickers, right?

While we’re on the subject, here are my current rankings for kickers: