Value of a Kicker

[TheNoodleMan]

I haven't read This yet but its an piece on NFL kickers by Michael Lewis (author of Moneyball and Blindside) that just ran in the NYT sport mag Play.

[bernie]

Kickers are important, but they tend to be overrated. The difference between kickers(NFL) isn't really that great.

b

[PartyGirlUK]

I think NFL should switch to the rugby style of conversions. i.e. you have to kick from in line with where you went over for the TD. This would add an extra element of skill [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Franchise 60]

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Is there any research on angling punts and coffin corner attempts? I figure a good coffin corner punter must add something to a team.

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Until Hester started burning people, no one had used the coffin corner punt in years.

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Jeff Feagles says hi.

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[dlk9s]

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One thing I dislike about kickers on fantasy teams is that it awards kickers on teams that are bad.

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This is incorrect, first of all, but even if it was correct, I don't see the problem. You draft a player who you think will score a lot of points for you. You don't get style points if the record of the player's NFL team is good.

[sixfour]

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One thing I dislike about kickers on fantasy teams is that it awards kickers on teams that are bad.

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Is this in the same way that it'll reward QB's and WR's on teams that suck and will pass more chasing games (see Detroit last year, albeit exaggerated by the fact that they've not been able to run at all post-Sanders)?

[vhawk01]

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Outsiders did an interesting study that more or less proved that field goal accuracy is complete bs and all variance. There is almost no correlation from year to year in field goal accuracy. But there is a lot of correlation from year to year in the length of kickoffs.


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Where can I find this? I'm lobbying my fantasy leagues to elminate kickers and this is exactly what I've been telling them. If I don't have to duplicate Outsiders' work, than I'd rather not go through the analysis myself.

-McGee

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Haha, if I tried to do "analysis" on something like that and present it to my league to make a point, I would be instantly ridiculed dozens of times a day for the entire rest of the season.

Which is exactly why I am in this fantasy league. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Aces McGee]

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Outsiders did an interesting study that more or less proved that field goal accuracy is complete bs and all variance. There is almost no correlation from year to year in field goal accuracy. But there is a lot of correlation from year to year in the length of kickoffs.


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Where can I find this? I'm lobbying my fantasy leagues to elminate kickers and this is exactly what I've been telling them. If I don't have to duplicate Outsiders' work, than I'd rather not go through the analysis myself.

-McGee

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Haha, if I tried to do "analysis" on something like that and present it to my league to make a point, I would be instantly ridiculed dozens of times a day for the entire rest of the season.

Which is exactly why I am in this fantasy league. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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Well, I have not exactly been well-received thus far.

-McGee

[CORed]

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However regarding FGs...I don't doubt the study that FO did. But doesn't it seem foolish to say theres no skill in something like kicking a FG and that its all luck? I mean, I dunno....it just seems totally obvious to me that there has to be skill in it.

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If any NFL coach or GM doubts that there's skill involved in kicking FG's, they can hire me as their kicker and watch me go 0 for whatever in FG's and extra points.

I think I possibly could kick an extra point in practice with no defense (haven't tried), but I have no doubt that in a game situation I couldn't kick an extra point. I'd be lucky not to get it blocked. Anything longer than an extra point I doubt I could do even from a tee.

[JordanIB]

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However regarding FGs...I don't doubt the study that FO did. But doesn't it seem foolish to say theres no skill in something like kicking a FG and that its all luck? I mean, I dunno....it just seems totally obvious to me that there has to be skill in it.

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If any NFL coach or GM doubts that there's skill involved in kicking FG's, they can hire me as their kicker and watch me go 0 for whatever in FG's and extra points.

I think I possibly could kick an extra point in practice with no defense (haven't tried), but I have no doubt that in a game situation I couldn't kick an extra point. I'd be lucky not to get it blocked. Anything longer than an extra point I doubt I could do even from a tee.

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I think it is a given that the argument pertains to the 20-30 best kickers in the world.

When somebody says that singles in baseball are a matter of luck, they don't mean that Joe Shmo off the street will hit the same # of singles as Pujols.