-1 for QB Pick

[Greg Ambrosius]

Why is a pick only -1? If it were -2 like it should be, I would have won instead of lost since I was going against Romo.

And don't tell me "Because that was the poll results." With the average QB throwing for 350 yds/game these days and with 6 pts for passing TD, it has to be -2!

Hey, if people want more negative points in our scoring system we can oblige. It has always been -1 because many times interceptions happen because of the wide receiver (see Dez Bryant) or because it's an end of half pass or something else out of the quarterback's doing. That being said, we did survey our members last year about increasing interceptions to -2 and there wasn't a consensus on adding more negative points.

Heck, why not make a lost fumble -2? Why not lower QB TDs to 4 points or even 3 points?? Why not make tight end catches worth 3 points? No matter what the scoring system is you have to draft accordingly and if you think QBs are too highly valued here then draft them earlier. Doesn't that make more sense?

But sure, if you want more negative points in the NFFC just let me know. We can deflate your scores as much as you'd like.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Why is a pick only -1? If it were -2 like it should be, I would have won instead of lost since I was going against Romo.

And don't tell me "Because that was the poll results." With the average QB throwing for 350 yds/game these days and with 6 pts for passing TD, it has to be -2!

Avg yards is about 240, which is 5.5 points less than you suggest. Average INT's is close to 1 per game, so raising it would take away 1 point per game. Per your analysis, the average QB would have to throw 6.5 INT's per game rather than 1 to have the impact you suggest.

As for Romo, at least 2 of his picks were completely on his WRs and a third was on his blockers which collapsed causing a fumble-ception. His game wasn't nearly as bad as it appeared.

Dez Bryant,meanwhile, was horrible but still put up 20+ points. Where's the outrage over that ??? If would be better justice to pin a -2 on him for an INT caused by running the wrong route, plus a couple more minuses for huge drops right through his fat fingers. Ogletree deserved one too for letting a perfectly thrown ball clank off his face directly to a defender.

What KJ said. Spot on.

[King of Queens]

Maybe kickers should be rewarded for longer field goals, but IMO 31 yards is not deserving of a bonus. MAYBE give extra points for the 50+ yard variety. I just don't believe that a good week by a kicker should equal the same fantasy points as a good week from your RB1.

It could be a short term blip, but this feels like the "Year of the Kicker" -- there sure have been a lot of big performances thus far:

Kickers with 14+ points
Week 1: 7 (Cundiff20, Kaeding18.6, Walsh18.5, Akers17.6, Bryant17.5, Tucker17.5, Zuerlein14.4)
Week 2: 6 (Gostkowski18, Hanson17.7, Tucker17.5, Tynes16.3, Crosby15.7, Vinatieri14.8)
Week 3: 6 (Succop23.1, Tynes22.2, Hanson19.3, Bironas14.9, Gostkowski14.6, Gould14.1)
Week 4: 7 (Zuerlein20.6, Prater16.6, Barth16.4, Dawson16.3, Novak16.2, Henery15.3, Bryant14.4)

Looking forward to Young G.Z.'s 31.2 point game tomorrow night

[Greg Ambrosius]

If we are getting into the "why is that in the rules?" discussion, here's one that has bothered me of late:

Why is it 6 points for a TD, be it one yard or 99, yet a kicker gets bonus points for anything over 30 yards? Makes no sense!

Okay, one more. In non-NFFC leagues where QBs get 4 points per TD pass...but get 2 points for throwing a 2-yard 2-point conversion. Why??????

Because what differentiates a one-yard from a 99-yard TD is the 9.8 point difference in yardage points. Kickers need a way to be rewarded for greater difficulty too.

Then again, if we really want to question kicker scoring, why not have another resounding chorus of a little song I wrote last year wherein I questioned why we even still use kickers, seeing most of the ones we end up using weren't even the ones we drafted?!

Here are this year's top 12 kickers so far, showing their kicker ADP:

Player Pts Avg K-ADP
1 Zuerlein 58.6 14.6 16
2 Hanson 56.7 14.1 19
3 Gostkowski 53.1 13.2 2
4 Tucker 48.5 12.1 13
5 Tynes 48.5 12.1 17
6 Akers 47.6 11.9 1
7 Walsh 46.7 11.6 25
8 Bryant 45.8 11.4 6
9 Barth 45.7 11.4 27
10 Gould 42.4 10.6 14
11 Dawson 41.8 10.4 18
12 Graham 39.7 9.9 12

The average kicker ADP of the current top 12 kickers was 14.2. As you can see, just 4 of the projected top 12 are actually among the top 12. The average ADP of the other 8: a whopping 18.6!

IMO, kickers truly are the same as playing poker with wild cards.

Spot on with your response on the kickers' bonus points. Do WRs and RBs deserve even more points for long runs or catches when they already got the yardage points? Doesn't seem right. Heck, if we're considering giving double points then the next thread HAS TO BE giving special teams points to the individual player and the special teams. Let's do that thread next. I'd probably do that rule change before anything else.

As for kickers having meaningless value, I have to disagree there. Everything we do on Draft Day is about finding value with every pick. If you look at the kickers, some owners got excellent value with a 20th round pick on Greg Zuerlein or Justin Tucker or Blair Walsh. And we all know that Akers went 5-6 rounds ahead of them. So again, it's about value, value, value even when it comes to picking these stupid kickers, wouldn't you say?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Maybe kickers should be rewarded for longer field goals, but IMO 31 yards is not deserving of a bonus. MAYBE give extra points for the 50+ yard variety. I just don't believe that a good week by a kicker should equal the same fantasy points as a good week from your RB1.

It could be a short term blip, but this feels like the "Year of the Kicker" -- there sure have been a lot of big performances thus far:

Kickers with 14+ points
Week 1: 7 (Cundiff20, Kaeding18.6, Walsh18.5, Akers17.6, Bryant17.5, Tucker17.5, Zuerlein14.4)
Week 2: 6 (Gostkowski18, Hanson17.7, Tucker17.5, Tynes16.3, Crosby15.7, Vinatieri14.8)
Week 3: 6 (Succop23.1, Tynes22.2, Hanson19.3, Bironas14.9, Gostkowski14.6, Gould14.1)
Week 4: 7 (Zuerlein20.6, Prater16.6, Barth16.4, Dawson16.3, Novak16.2, Henery15.3, Bryant14.4)

Looking forward to Young G.Z.'s 31.2 point game tomorrow night

And kickers are converting field goals at the highest percentage in NFL history and making longer field goals at a record pace as well. Succop had 6 field goals in Week 3, so he got 5.1 bonus points. Hell, he won the game for the Chiefs and probably deserved more bonus points than that!! We're obviously seeing more field goals because head coaches are more comfortable throwing kickers out there from 50+ yards at anytime in the game more than ever before. I think our scoring reflects the changes in the game for the better, but sure you could consider bonus points from 40+ yards instead of 30+ yards, but is that really a necessary scoring change?

We were the first fantasy game in 2004 to do field goals with this style of bonus points and others followed suit. Tell the others to get rid of the kicking fantasy points, too.

[Sandman62]

As for kickers having meaningless value, I have to disagree there. Everything we do on Draft Day is about finding value with every pick. If you look at the kickers, some owners got excellent value with a 20th round pick on Greg Zuerlein or Justin Tucker or Blair Walsh. And we all know that Akers went 5-6 rounds ahead of them. So again, it's about value, value, value even when it comes to picking these stupid kickers, wouldn't you say?

Seeing you asked my opinion, uh... NO, I wouldn't say.
There were 237 12-team drafts. Twelve kickers were drafted in over 200 of them. Most of them aren't even in the top 12 in points.

Zuerlein: 61 drafts
Tucker: 48
Walsh: 16

"Value" or pure luck? (And I have even Tucker on a couple teams)

This is the same story every year: those who "nailed" one of these kickers would like to think it was skill, and in hindsight, can justify why these guys are doing well now. But if the vast majority of owners didn't bother with these kickers, then unless those who did are just far more skilled than the rest of us in all aspects of their drafting, then I'll stick with the "pure luck" verdict... IMO.

[Greg Ambrosius]

As for kickers having meaningless value, I have to disagree there. Everything we do on Draft Day is about finding value with every pick. If you look at the kickers, some owners got excellent value with a 20th round pick on Greg Zuerlein or Justin Tucker or Blair Walsh. And we all know that Akers went 5-6 rounds ahead of them. So again, it's about value, value, value even when it comes to picking these stupid kickers, wouldn't you say?

Seeing you asked my opinion, uh... NO, I wouldn't say.
There were 237 12-team drafts. Twelve kickers were drafted in over 200 of them. Most of them aren't even in the top 12 in points.

Zuerlein: 61 drafts
Tucker: 48
Walsh: 16

"Value" or pure luck? (And I have even Tucker on a couple teams)

This is the same story every year: those who "nailed" one of these kickers would like to think it was skill, and in hindsight, can justify why these guys are doing well now. But if the vast majority of owners didn't bother with these kickers, then unless those who did are just far more skilled than the rest of us in all aspects of their drafting, then I'll stick with the "pure luck" verdict... IMO.

So 25% of the Zuerlein owners were "lucky" this year? And all of the Zuerlein owners who got him in FAAB in Week 2 or 3 were "lucky" as well? No more "lucky" than Victor Cruz owners were last year, if you ask me. It's just another unpredictable position where some owners can win and others go too early for last year's top point producers.

Since it's such a crapshoot at kickers, why do some owners continue to take kickers too high? I mean, looking at the ADPs you mentioned, Akers went 20 picks ahead of any other kicker based on last year's record-setting season. It made sense. But now he's no better than Greg Zuerlein, who went 57 picks after him. Half of the owners mentioned in your 12-team examples took a kicker 46+ picks after Akers, so obviously there is some strategy involved with this position. Some feel secure taking last year's top point getters and others rightly wait on kickers and use a buck to pick up the hot ones from week to week.

Is more luck involved with this position than any other? Possibly, but I don't see what eliminating the position does for the enjoyment of the hobby.

[Sandman62]

I don't think we can have a valid discussion about how much kickers should be worth based on the fact that a small percentage of owners overdrafted last year's stats.

As for the Cruz comparison, it's not the same. Two thirds of the top kickers weren't drafted as such. One (or two or a few) TOP WRs out of each 12-team league's starting lineup (36-48 total) came from the waiver wire, considering that we start 3 WRs and potentially a 4th at flex. Apples... oranges.

Ok, if eliminating kickers isn't desired, how about toning down their points?

As I pointed out, even I am benefiting from Tucker in a couple leagues. How much skill was there landing him in rounds 27 and 29 of DCs? Well, maybe a little, but I’m certainly not claiming any kind of ingenious value pick on a player picked that late. We threw a semi-educated dart. It was probably around midnight in those 3-hr drafts and we were scouring the Rotoworld depth charts, looking for kicker competitions. As we saw some potential ones, we would Google some articles, and ultimately learned that Cundiff was battling Tucker for his job.

That said, I still believe that we shouldn't be rewarded with occasional 15-25 point games for this, when it's much harder to draft and start 2 decent RBs, 3 decent WRs and a flex each week! IMO, kickers should seldom score more than RB2s, WR3s or flex players because we spend a lot more time researching, evaluating and agonizing over those other positions; why should a position we hardly spend time on be rewarded more? And I don’t at all buy into the argument that “because in the NFL, kickers outscore backup RBs and WRs”. We’re not IN the NFL; we’re playing a stats-driven game based on its players. Why make it so easy for us to compensate for the holes we might have drafted ourselves into (or by injuries suffered) at the important positions by simply going to the waiver wire in the first few weeks and acquiring 150+ point kickers?

Last year, the top 12 kickers all scored 135 or more points. Only 33 RBs achieved that and only 53 WRs. Based on where we had to draft that caliber of position players compared to getting kickers in the last couple rounds or off waivers, it just seems that kickers are over-compensated in NFFC scoring.

My opinion.

[Tom Kessenich]

As a Dan Bailey owner in multiple leagues, I'd happily trade places with the owners who got "lucky" and landed a superior kicker either in the draft or off the Waiver Wire.

[King of Queens]

Well stated, Mike. I have a much bigger problem with kickers scoring versus RB and WR than I do with Ks vs Ks. Sure, there's a Victor Cruz emerging every year that makes a difference. However, when an entire POSITION's scoring is dictated by randomness AND produces scores that often exceed your starting RBs or WRs, I must shake my head.