King of Queens wrote:Tom Kessenich wrote: We can and will look into everything Glenn but I'm not seeing a lot of outrage over kicker scoring in the fantasy industry. That's not to say we shouldn't be out in front of things and we have been in a lot of ways over the years as you well know. But our scoring for kickers seems to be pretty standard. Are players in other contests and leagues viewing this as an issue that needs to be addressed?
There is a similar discussion taking place on the Rotoworld forums. Might just be my perception, but it seems that people's frustrations over randomness in fantasy football is at an all-time high this year. One of the points brought up in that thread concerned kicker scoring, and in my opinion, the data speaks for itself.
There's randomness everywhere, though, in fantasy football. Like Matt said, Brian Hartline pulls a major game out of his behind out of nowhere. The Texans' defense scores not once but twice. Ryan Fitzpatrick throws for 350 yards after struggling to reach 200 in a game the first three weeks. Somebody named Brandon Bolden looked like Jim Brown for a day.
Randomness or luck or whatever you want to call it is always going to be a part of fantasy football and sometimes it's a pretty big part. If we love this game - and I love it - then we have to accept that going in. I know I do. Trying to massively change the rules in an attempt to remove this aspect is a failing method in my opinion. No matter how hard you try to remove it, it's always going to be there and there will be weeks when it's there in droves. Having played this game for over 25 years if there's one thing I know it's that there are no perfect remedies to the "random" or "luck" factor. It will always be there.
I'll keep using my Dan Bailey example. I drafted him thinking he'd be a good fantasy option because he's talented and on what I expected to be a good offense just like last season. To this point he's been fine but the offense stinks and his fantasy production has been poor as a result. Am I responding to that by wanting the entire position removed or the scoring adjusted? Not at all. I'm just going to find a better kicker so I'm stronger at the position. Unlike other positions kicker is one where you can improve the position - sometimes significantly - after the season has begun. I consider that to be a good thing for this game. I'm also not upset that someone may have Greg Zeurlein, Justin Tucker or Phil Dawson last week and I have Bailey. If they were smart enough to draft those guys or grab them off the WW more power to them. I drafted Akers and snared Bailey in a bunch of leagues off the WW last year and was rewarded for those moves. If people want to say I was lucky to have those kickers fine. To that I say I hope to have more of that kind of luck this season.
I think the frustration in fantasy football is higher than the other sports because you only get one shot per week. In baseball and basketball one bad day/night isn't going to kill your week. In fantasy football, it will. So if you see Greg Zeurlein or Phil Dawson go crazy it's going to frustrate you if you played against them or if you started Nick Folk this week and he got you zip. Or if you started Julio Jones and went up against the guy who started Brian Hartline for some unknown reason and beat the the absolute he** out of you in the process. There's always going to be some randomness or luck involved. That's the nature of the game.
