Years ago, I wrote an article in which I proposed the elimination of kickers in the National Football League. Not just making subtle changes to the distance of extra points, or assigning a different point value for the length of each attempt, but removing field goals and kickoffs from the game altogether.
Having a converted soccer player decide the fate of a 60-minute battle between two squads of 53 men has always seemed silly to me. Especially when you consider the difficulty of kicking an oblong ball, designed specifically for throwing and not kicking, 45 yards downfield between two vertical poles spaced 18 feet and six inches apart. Kickers are like lawyers. Nobody likes them until you need one in your most tenuous of situations. And unlike lawyers and the American justice system, kickers are not going away anytime soon.
So instead of lamenting kickers and promoting their eradication from fantasy games like the majority of fantasy writers in the industry, I decided a few years back to study what makes a fantasy kicker successful and identify variables that lead to kicker production. If they are going to be a part of the game — and continue to score around the same number of points as a high-end WR2 — why not take advantage of the industry’s shared laziness and look for a way to find value in an otherwise untapped position?
The result is my K Score metric that I used last season as part of my weekly kicker primer here on FantasyPros. Using four metrics, including red-zone efficiency, red-zone defensive stats, and offensive yardage rankings, I was able to use the K Score to successfully identify a K1 out of players ranked well outside the top 12 each week nearly 70% of the time.
Not only did the K Score give me the information I needed to selected the top kicker (who was ranked well outside the top-20 ECR) three times in 14 weeks, the data gave me a clear understanding of the value Ka’imi Fairbairn possessed well before the industry caught up.
As I dove into the last season’s data and started the process of using the K Score to produce my 2019 rankings, I thought it would be informative to highlight some interesting trends from last season.
Surprise Finishers
- Fairbairn benefitted from playing on a Houston Texans team that ranked in the top 15 in both yards and points per game, but third-worst in offensive red-zone efficiency. He finished with the league’s second-best K Score and also benefitted from playing half of his games indoors.
- Five of the top-10 kickers, including Fairbairn, Robbie Gould, Jason Myers, Brett Maher, and Aldrick Rosas played on teams that ranked in the bottom seven in red-zone efficiency. Only Gould resided in the ECR’s top 12.
- All ranked inside the top 10, Jake Elliott, Matt Bryant, and Chris Boswell finished well outside the top 12. Boswell, who eventually lost his job, concluded 2018 as the No. 25 kicker.
The Power of One
- For years, Stephen Gostkowski owners have benefitted from Tom Brady and the New England Patriots’ potent and consistent offensive production. Gostkowski was three percentage points below his career average of made attempts last season (84.3%), but he made up for it with the third-most extra points to finish as the No. 5 kicker.
- Three of the top-five kickers, Harrison Butker, Will Lutz, and Gostkowski all played on teams that ranked in the top five in scoring and top 10 in yards per game. Butker tied Adam Vinatieri and Sebastian Janikowski for 19th in field-goal attempts per game, but the Chiefs kicker got a massive boost from Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City offense to the tune of 65 extra points. By comparison, Gould, the eighth-ranked kicker in fantasy, garnered only 29 extra-point attempts on the season.
Consistency
- Although finishing just inside the top 12 based on total points, Greg the Leg Zuerlein lapped the field in consistency scores. He finished as a K1 in 82% of the 11 games he played last season. The second-best consistency rating was Fairbairn at 69%.
- Fairbairn finished as the No. 1 kicker and posted the highest percentage of top-five finishes en route to a Pro Bowl selection. The Texans have been a bottom-five red-zone offense in each of the last two seasons under Bill O’Brien and Deshaun Watson, so Fairbairn should once again be a fantasy stud unless that trend improves.
- Michael Badgley quietly finished with the third-highest percentage of top-five finishes in his short time as the Chargers’ starter. As of now, the fantasy industry is not buying a repeat based on his No. 12 ranking in ECR as of March 20. Don’t sleep on him this season, as he could be a steal in drafts.
K Score Limitations
- Boswell finished as the No. 25 kicker despite the benefit of playing on a team that ranked in the top six in both yards and points scored. Not only did Boswell develop a terrible case of the shanks, but the Steelers also boasted the second-best red-zone offenses and limited his field-goal opportunities. The result? Boswell is out looking for a job and will likely be selling insurance in the fall.
Early 2019 Sleepers
- Jason Sanders of the Miami Dolphins made a strong first impression by converting 19 of his first 21 NFL field-goal attempts. Although the Dolphins had one of the worst red-zone offenses in the league last year, which helped Sanders get some three-point opportunities, his overall K Score was dreadful based on Miami’s awful offense and inability to move the ball. With Ryan Fitzpatrick now at QB, the Dolphins will be a sneaky good offense for fantasy purposes and could elevate Sanders to a top-12 kicker in 2019.
- Whoever takes over for the Bucs will likely garner some streaming consideration next season. Chandler Catanzaro owned one of best K Scores for a player ranked outside the top 25, but failed to live up to expectations because of low volume. With a new offensive-minded head coach in Bruce Arians and a full season of Jameis Winston under center, their offense should take another step forward. The rising tide should also boost up the kicker.
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Andrew Swanson is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive or follow him @FFtoday_Andy.
