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This has been an Armageddon against veteran kickers the past week or so; there have to be teams out there that currently have zero active kickers on their rosters after drafting the likes of Matt Prater, Alex Henery, Shayne Graham, Connor Barth, Ryan Succop and Jay Feeley. With the absolute randomness of the position and the clear movement of the league to go to cheaper, younger options, I think there needs to be a reassessment of having kickers included in the "no-moves" leagues. I don't have a problem with them in the FAAB leagues, since you can add someone new if they are cut or hurt, but with the Draft Champions formats, there's gonna be a lot of very low scores or even zeroes taken at the kicker slots this year.

MFL has already stated that they intend to eliminate the kickers for their games next year; I'm all for "tradition", but when something is broke, it needs to be fixed.

The only real surprise, imo, is/was Prater and he's only missing 4 games. And as with any other player with a prior occurance that is being monitored there is a risk of suspension if that player has another occurance. If a person was following the news for each of these other kickers, it was well publicized that they all were in competitions. And in a couple cases clearly behind in the competition. In classic leagues where, at most, no more than one kicker and a backup is drafted all these are/were easily avoidable. And the only reason to be drafting 2 in a classic format would be to account for injuries if the draft was occurring well before the start of the season and an early WW isn't available.
As regards DC's, I consider knowing which kickers are in a competition as being no different than any other position competition. You should be aware of the risk and proceed accordingly. If someone isn't aware of the competition, imo, it's no different than if they're unaware David Wilson retired or Andre Brown was released.
Especially in DC's, imo, there is a strategy involved in drafting kickers and if the position were eliminated it would just tend to somewhat "dumb-down" the draft.

I agree with Rich. The releases weren't that random. It just makes waiting at kicker extremely risky when drafting early. You aren't going to get it right all of the time but there were a lot of warning signs about many of the kickers this year. I reached to try and get 2 of the top 18 in most drafts. That being said I still had Barth and Graham on a few teams but that was my fault. I knew Graham wasn't a lock but I like the upside and it cost me.


Wayne

No! do not eliminate kickers. They are part of the game,part of the risk just like Rich and wayne said.

RiFF wrote:The only real surprise, imo, is/was Prater and he's only missing 4 games. And as with any other player with a prior occurance that is being monitored there is a risk of suspension if that player has another occurance. If a person was following the news for each of these other kickers, it was well publicized that they all were in competitions. And in a couple cases clearly behind in the competition. In classic leagues where, at most, no more than one kicker and a backup is drafted all these are/were easily avoidable. And the only reason to be drafting 2 in a classic format would be to account for injuries if the draft was occurring well before the start of the season and an early WW isn't available.
As regards DC's, I consider knowing which kickers are in a competition as being no different than any other position competition. You should be aware of the risk and proceed accordingly. If someone isn't aware of the competition, imo, it's no different than if they're unaware David Wilson retired or Andre Brown was released.
Especially in DC's, imo, there is a strategy involved in drafting kickers and if the position were eliminated it would just tend to somewhat "dumb-down" the draft.

agreed, part of the research and strategy

All part of the strategy, for my slow drafts this year I opted against grabbing some players I liked to insure that I grabbed kickers early such that I always ended with ones whose job I felt were not at risk at all. Those that waited may have more depth than me but the cost of that was being thin at K. ks and Ds are all part of the game imho.

Scott

A couple years ago, in my own DC, I drafted two kickers who were not in any competition - Garrett Hartley and Nate Kaeding. Both went down for the season in preseason and I had no kickers the entire year. Yes, I usually do try to get 3 kickers, but in that one, I didn't.

0 Well I drafted the 1st one b4 the schedule came out I got the Browns and bengals kickers same by week. And got Hartley hopefully he lands a spot

Absolutely not.
I will say that I was surprised to see Henery cut. But I'm sure he'll be back in the league before too long.

I drafted Prater on my DC team. 4 week suspension. Not concerned about it, I also have G. Gano and M. Nugent as backup.

Ignore the K position at your own peril.

I think it would be smart to draft "Team Kickers" just like Team Def.