To go along with his August 30 blog (ESPN Insider link), Eric Karabell should have included a picture of himself drinking Keystone Ice and chucking darts at a dartboard with Sean Salisbury's face on it. Karabell himself admits that ranking kickers especially is a crapshoot, but hey they have to fill space and give ESPN Insider's their money's worth.
There are basically 3 mindsets when drafting kickers:
A) Draft a 'name' kicker - Adam Vinatieri, Scott Norwood, Jason Elam, etc. Hey, these guys make big kicks when it matters (except Norwood), get on Sportscenter, and win Super Bowls. Except none of that matters in fantasy football.
2) Try to pick a bad team and get their kicker. Cleveland isn't going to score many touchdowns, so let's get Phil Dawson and we'll rack up the field goals! Sure, in a perfect world, the Browns would lose every game 49-12. Or it could backfire and you would lose all the PATs that a kicker on a good team would have.
iii) Don't draft a kicker. This was my method in 2/3 of my drafts this year. I'd rather grab a 6th wide receiver in the draft, and drop someone in favor of a kicker right before I set my weekly lineup. At least this way I have insurance on my roster in case of a preseason injury, or I can package players in a trade proposal. Not going to see many trades where a kicker is the headliner of a trade.
One last point. Don't be the guy who says "I'm not drafting a kicker until the last round." Because you won't wait. Someone will draft Shayne Graham or Robbie Gould in the 11th or 12th round, starting a run on kickers, and you'll jump right in. You know its going to happen.
Coming tomorrow: Turf toe, and how it impacts my fantasy right tackle rankings
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