Some sleeper... KICKERS?!?

Kickers don't matter. The preseason doesn't matter. So this article about preseason kicker stats must REALLY not matter. At least that's the conventional wisdom - but let's delve into some numbers.

The best kicker last year got 42 more points than the worst starting kicker in a 12 team league. The year before, the best kicker was worth just 27 points more than the worst. So if you can manage to figure out who the best kicker is, you'll get about 2 points more per week than you would if you just picked the best available unowned kicker. ESPN's Mathew Berry often cites that stat as a reason to never waste your time thinking about kickers. But 2 points per week do matter. I don't know about you, but I've won and lost a fair amount of match-ups by 2 points or less.

 After 4 weeks of the Preseason, here are the teams that lead the league in Field Goals and Extra Points. I looked at team stats rather than individual stats because some teams used multiple kickers, but will use only one in the regular season.

Rank	Team	Kicker	Points
1	PHI	David Akers	38
2	NO	Garrett Hartley	36
3	JAX	Josh Scobee	35
4	PIT	Jeff Reed	35
5	STL	Josh Brown	35
6	HOU	Neil Rackers	34
7	SF	Joe Nedney	33
8	GB	Mason Crosby	33
9	OAK	Sebastian Janikowski	32
10	SEA	Olindo Mare	31
11	BUF	Rian Lindell	31
12	CIN	Mike Nugent	30.4*
13	CLE	Phil Dawson	30
14	DEN	Matt Prater	30
15	DAL	David Buehler	28*
16	ATL	Matt Bryant	25
17	NYJ	Nick Folk	25

HTML Tables

*Cincinnati and Dallas were adjusted to their points if they had played 4, rather than 5 games.

We are looking for accuracy and opportunities. A lot of guys have moved around:

David Akers was top 10 in accuracy last year, was top 10 in attempts, was #2 in fantasy points in '08 and '09, and is #1 in the preseason. His ADP is the 7th Kicker. Maybe the offense will be a little less prolific without McNabb, but Akers should probably be a top 3 pick if not the top kicker off draft boards.

David Buehler is the new Dallas kicker. Dallas was top ten in Field Goal attempts last year. Those of you who owned Nick Folk may know that he fell outside the top 20 in fantasy points because he was in the bottom 3 in terms of accuracy. So, if Buehler is at least average in his accuracy, he will succeed because there should be plenty of opportunities. Buehler's ADP is "undrafted."

Here's where the stats get really fun:
Neil Rackers was the most accurate kicker in the league last year, but had the least field goal opportunities in the league. Now he's in Houston, which had the 7th most FG opportunities last year. If you owned Houston's kicker last year, Kris Brown, you know that he sucked despite all the opportunities because he was among the 5 least accurate kickers. Thus, it's no surprise that the Texans cut Brown today and formally announced Rackers as the starter. To recap: 1) league's most accurate kicker 2) with a ton of opportunities 3) off to a great preseason start and 4) has one of the top ten easiest kicker schedules this season. (Did you know they even kept track of kicker strength of schedule? Well they do.)

Jay Feely had a decent year last year because the Jets had so many FG attempts, but his accuracy is average, and now he's on the team with the fewest FG attempts (ARI). Don't draft him. Unless you're in one of those fun 3 Kicker leagues.

Your kicker will probably not make or break your season, but kickers are worth paying some attention to. Here's the full-circle take-away: Draft Neil Rackers. His ADP is the 12th Kicker, so you can get him with the last pick of the last round. So even though the starting premise of the article is that you should not ignore kickers, the conclusion is that you can ignore kickers until the last pick and get the best one!

Now I'm gonna update my Kicker rankings...