FANTASY FOOTBALL ARTICLES

Repeatability - Kickers
David Dorey
August 15, 2006
Quarterbacks | Running Backs | Wide Receivers | Tight Ends | Kickers

Placekickers have longed carried the reputation for being hard to predict and it ends up as being quite true - with a few notable exceptions. All player listings to follow were created using the standard performance scoring as seen on The Huddle statistics. Kickers receive one point per extra point and three points per field goal.

	2001	Pts	2002	Pts	2003	Pts	2004	Pts	2005	Pts
1	J Wilkins	127	J Feely	138	J Wilkins	163	A Vinatieri	141	J Feely	148
2	M Vanderjagt	125	D Akers	133	M Vanderjagt	157	J Elam	129	N Rackers	140
3	J Elam	124	J Carney	130	M Stover	134	J Reed	124	S Graham	131
4	K Brown	124	R Longwell	128	J Kasay	125	D Akers	122	L Tynes	125
5	M Stover	115	M Gramatica	128	G Anderson	123	S Graham	122	J Kasay	121
6	D Akers	115	S Janikowski	128	J Elam	120	R Longwell	120	M Vanderjagt	121

7	J Feely	115	J Elam	120	R Longwell	120	M Vanderjagt	119	J Wilkins	117
8	J Carney	113	M Andersen	117	D Akers	114	R Lindell	117	J Reed	117
9	A Vinatieri	113	A Vinatieri	117	J Brown	114	M Stover	117	J Elam	115
10	P Edinger	112	M Hollis	115	A Vinatieri	112	N Kaeding	114	M Stover	113
11	S Janikowski	111	O Mare	114	M Andersen	106	L Tynes	109	R Lindell	113
12	T Peterson	108	J Nedney	111	S Graham	106	J Brown	109	N Kaeding	112

13	J Hall	104	M Bryant	108	D Brien	105	S Janikowski	106	J Brown	110
14	R Longwell	104	J Hall	107	P Edinger	105	D Brien	105	O Mare	108
15	J Cortez	101	R Lindell	107	A Elling	102	J Carney	104	J Scobee	107
16	B Conway	100	J Cortez	103	J Carney	102	P Dawson	100	P Edinger	106
17	M Andersen	98	M Vanderjagt	103	J Hall	101	J Hanson	100	T Peterson	104
18	M Gramatica	97	J Hanson	100	J Reed	100	M Andersen	99	K Brown	102
19	O Mare	96	P Dawson	100	B Cundiff	99	S Christie	99	A Vinatieri	100
20	P Dawson	95	M Stover	96	O Mare	99	J Feely	94	P Dawson	100
21	J Nedney	94	P Edinger	95	S Janikowski	94	N Rackers	94	R Bironas	99
22	R Lindell	93	J Wilkins	94	J Hanson	92	J Scobee	93	J Nedney	97
23	J Kasay	91	G Anderson	90	S Marler	90	B Cundiff	91	J Carney	97
24	W Richey	89	S Christie	89	J Feely	89	J Wilkins	89	M Bryant	94
The Following season:			Remained Top 6		Became 7-12		Not in Top 12

Top 6 became	Avg.	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Top 6	1	1	0	1	1	1
7 to 12	2	1	2	2	2	2
Worse than 12th	3	4	4	3	3	3
7 to 12 became	Avg.	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Top 6	3	3	1	4	4	2
7 to 12	2	1	2	1	1	3
Worse than 12th	2	2	3	1	1	1
Top 6 was	Avg.	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
Top 6	1	1	0	1	1	1
7 to 12	2	3	1	3	3	2
Worse than 12th	3	2	5	2	2	3

The Top 6 each year is closest to being a guide for who will not be in the Top 6 the following year. Not once in the last five years has more than one kicker repeated in the Top 6 the following year. 2002 had none.

The 7 to 12 range kickers actually fared better at becoming Top 6 than those kickers who just were Top 6. They have been twice as likely and last year were four times as likely to show up in the top tier in 2004 though they fell back to just two last year. However - they had their share of duds as well. Overall, this is the best tier for repeating.

Looking backwards, there's still not a lot to glean that can be relied on. Even if you selected two kickers from the previous Top 12, you'd be lucky to get one of them that remained in the Top 12. One caveat to all of this is that those bad kickers - ranked 24+ in the previous season - can pretty much be ignored the next year safely enough. They just do not rise up enough to warrant any consideration.

Another oddity is how many kickers alternate having big years and down years. There is no real reason for it other than it only takes about 20 points to shift a kicker from being Top 6 to being nothing more than a back-up.

	Repeat Reliability	2002	2003	2004	2005
1	J Elam	7	6	2	7
2	S Graham		12	5	3
3	L Tynes			11	4
4	M Vanderjagt	17	2	7	5
5	A Vinatieri	9	10	1	16
6	J Reed		18	3	6
7	D Akers	2	8	4	23
8	R Longwell	4	7	6	20
9	N Kaeding			10	9
10	M Stover	20	3	9	8
11	J Brown		9	12	10
12	J Feely	1	24	20	1
13	N Rackers			21	2
14	J Kasay		4	27	5
15	J Carney	3	16	15	18
16	J Wilkins	22	1	24	6
17	S Janikowski	6	21	13	20
18	J Nedney	12			18
19	R Lindell	15	28	8	11
20	P Dawson	19		16	16
21	J Scobee			22	12
22	O Mare	11	20	30	11
23	P Edinger	21	14	29	13
24	J Hanson	18	22	17	21

The table to the right shows the year end ranking for each of the listed players and is sorted in a manner to suggest the most reliable "repeaters" in fantasy drafts over the last five years. While Akers has not been a #1 before and he's only once been better than 4th in a given year, he was the most reliable - until last year. Same for Longwell. Vanderjagt and Wilkins have been gold in the past but both have been every other year players.

Notable too is that the #1 kicker for the last four years has not repeated with a performance better than 16th the next year.

Kicker Repeatability
12% - 0%

Considering the similar scoring for all kickers, only the Top 6 really can be said to be difference makers. Over the last five years, there is usually only one player that repeats the next year in the Top 6 and yet that tier is almost entirely unrelaible. There is just no measurable way to predict kickers based heavily on past performance. Akers, Longwell, Elam, Vanderjagt, Stover and Vinatieri are the only "repeaters" worthy of relying on and as shown above - that repeat may mean that they are just worth having as a starting kicker, not as a true difference maker. Playing into the numbers as well are many kickers that turn in one or two monster games that pushes them well above the pack and yet the next year doesn't have those one or two games and makes them look like they dropped severely. The reality is that they are pretty much the same as always other than the one or two games.