by Dan Salem and Todd Salem (8-12-13)
[Part one - Off season questions Real & Hilarious]
[Part two - Tebow vs. Hernandez]
TODD:
The kicker in fantasy football is irrelevant and should be removed. The stats back this up. Made field goal percentage is so balanced and so steady, everyone always comes back to the mean. You can go through and look up who the projected top fantasy kicker was each season and how rarely that same man finishes the year as the best. So what's the point of using them in fantasy football? It is simply a random chance as to whether you will select the guy who has the good year, the average year or the bad year. There is no skill in this and literally no research you can do to improve your chances of selecting the former.
I am actually in a league that previously did not employ kickers as a position and, just this season, decided to re-institute them, for reasons unbeknownst to me. I guess I can take solace in the fact that someone will overdraft one of these men, and it will work to my benefit. But other than that, what's even the point?
DAN:
I'm with you on the kicker being a relatively flat position in fantasy football. The man himself is irrelevant. Only his team matters. How do you go about selecting a kicker? Pick a team that meets one of two criteria: 1) Scores a ton of points 2) Has a terrible red zone offense and can't get in the end zone. Done and done!
I don't think you remove it from the fantasy conversation however. Its a wildcard position that is not much different than team defense. You are looking for consistency with the potential for a big week. A five field goal day can win or lose you a week in fantasy football and that's what makes it both wildly fun and unbelievably frustrating to play. Fantasy Football is 50% smarts 40% luck and 10% paying attention to injury. Everyone knows this and removing the kicker does not decrease the luck factor nor improve the need for smarts. It just excludes a rather important facet of the actual game of football. It would be like taking saves out of fantasy baseball. Although a poor analogy, its basically removing a fundamental and critical part of the actual sport from our fantasy pastime. No.
I don't know if you could tell, but I was working really hard to avoid reaching your next question. (If Barry Sanders came out of retirement, could he start at running back for the New York Jets?) Let me first lay two things out on the table. One, I don't appreciate being smacked in the face like that. Two, Barry Sanders was an unbelievable talent and top five all time at the running back position. If this was three or even five years after he retired, I would be tempted to answer yes. And that is NOT a knock on the Jets' current crop of running backs. Sanders retired with several solid years left in his tank and would have still been a force on the field a few years after he hung up his cleats. Now? No gosh darn way.
The New York Jets are not poor at running back. They have a solid offensive line full of veteran talent that has made the likes of Shonn Greene look good for the last couple seasons. He has his moments, that is all. I loved what I saw out of Bilal Powell last season and as the starter, watch out. He is going to surprise people. Chris Ivory is no slouch either and will provide the one, two punch that Rex Ryan loves to employ. And don't sleep on Joe McKnight either. He's too small to be the full time starter, but his big play potential is huge. Moral of the story, I'm glad to see Shonn Greene move on and am clamoring for our next Curtis Martin. I know you love Barry Sanders, but let him enjoy his retirement.
TODD:
You have your perceived percentages askew. Fantasy football is more like 40% smarts and 60% luck. Isn't paying attention to anything part of smarts? And wouldn't anything having to do with injuries be classified as luck? Unless of course we're talking about drafting Darren McFadden as your number one running back. That injury is on its way; there's no luck about it.
Removing the kicker position would absolutely decrease the luck factor. The baseball closer is a pretty good analogy but not perfect for one reason. Closers are rotated in and out so frequently that the skill involved is about finding saves, not about finding a year-long closer. Kickers are not normally replaced no matter how average or below average they are performing. As an aside, it would be kind of fun to try a fantasy baseball league without the saves stat. We could still use relief pitcher spots, but owners would be trying to find the best RPs in the league, regardless of whether their real-life manager tabs them as their team's closer. The MLB All-Star game seems to be going that way for some, uninteresting reason. The American League was filled with middle relievers who were performing better than closers elsewhere. It was not fun to wait for them to come into the game but it was fun to see the better pitcher rewarded over the guy with more saves.
Now back to the gridiron, and back to the AFC East, where your beloved New York Jets do have a running back problem whether you care to admit it or not. The NFL is a multi-back league for sure. Unless you have one of the top six or so guys, your team needs more than one reliable runner each and every week. Joe McKnight is a nice wild card; I will give you that. And I like Chris Ivory as well, assuming he is a team's second option at RB. But Bilal Powell? His best game last year came against the Jacksonville Jaguars and he barely cleared four yards per carry. The Jets have no number one guy. To venture back to a baseball analogy, they are like a pitching staff with no ace. They have a number two guy and two number three guys. Sure, it may get them some wins but they shouldn't feel confident with that group.
Barry Sanders, on the other hand, is only 45 years old and...okay, that question was just posed to make fun of the Jets. You got me. A few years after he retired, he could have certainly come back into the league. We all knew this at the time. But now it has been an astonishing 15 years since he last played. 15 years! Can you believe that? It seems like just yesterday he was juking, jumping and jiving through defenses.
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