image credit: los angeles times
This article is for those of you forced to choose a DST and/or a kicker for your fantasy team. Yes, I agree…those two positions should just be omitted. The unfortunate truth is that many of us are infected with the disease.
There is an article summing up some lessons learned from last year HERE. A major takeaway is that predraft rankings (like these) aren’t terribly accurate. How accurate are they? Well…
– 40% of kickers in the top 10 ended up in the top 10
– 20% of DSTs in the top 10 ended up in the top 10
This should tell you that a few might be fixtures in the top 10- but a lot…the majority…aren’t going to to be terribly reliable. So, if it’s down past those certainties, you should pick some other flex spots first. The visual below shows a pretty picture of this, along with the top 20. The spots for 11-20 don’t matter for these positions (most likely), as only 10 start in most leagues.
That aside, I pulled some aggregated (and weighted based on prior accuracy by positions) rankings on 8/1 (and will update this roughly each week through early September). You can see that there is some decent separation for the top few at each position. Don’t forget three things:
1) Remember that these positions are some of the least reliable (most difficult to predict at this time)
2) Getting separation from other teams is position agnostic. As in, it doesn’t matter if you get the extra two points from a kicker or a wide receiver. So get those two points if you have a chance
3) Hesitate before taking someone before their ADP
Note that a half of a point separates 3rd from 10th for kickers in the dashboard below…
Knowing that DSTs are VERY unreliable would make me comfortable waiting until the 18th to take the Panthers or 20th for the Steelers. Some more details are shown in the dashboard below…
Note that data used in this analysis was extracted on August 1st. The values used are subject to change, as I will be updating the data source closer to the draft with a fresher update on the data source.
