TJ Horgan | Thu, Aug 8th 2024, 7:00am EDT

5 Kickers to Target Late in Drafts (2024 Fantasy Football)

Let’s nip this trend of removing kickers from your fantasy football league’s roster in the bud. Right now.

Fantasy football has been close to my heart since I was roughly 10 years old. Let me try to analogize kickers with something else close to my heart: Italian food.

You sit down for your perfect meal. Maybe it’s your Grandma’s cooking, maybe it’s Olive Garden (no judgment, they’ve got some workhorse breadsticks) — for me, it’s a dimly-lit restaurant in Boston’s North End.

Drafting the bulk of your team — the first, say, 14 rounds, is your entree. It’s a piping hot plate of lasagna. You’ve got layers and layers of Bijan Robinson, Michael Pittman Jr. and Chase Brown, guys you’ve been hyped to watch all offseason. That team, that massive piece of layered Italian goodness, is on your plate. What’s next?

The fresh-cracked black pepper and fresh-grated, imported parmesan cheese. That’s your kicker. That’s your Younghoe Koo.

Would the meal, or your team, be great without them? Sure. Would they be complete? Would they properly satisfy the most gluttonous of cravings for something timelessly special? Absolutely not.

How often do you draft a fantasy team? How often do you sit down for your perfect meal? Not often. Savor them. Enjoy the pomp and circumstance of cracked pepper and parmesan. Enjoy the tradition of a fantasy football roster with kickers.

To put it bluntly, if you hate fun, feel free to get rid of kickers.

To say kickers are too unpredictably-scoring to continue having a place on your roster is foolish to me. Fantasy football in its entirety is unpredictable. Sure, kicker points might be slightly less predictable than other positions, but who are we to draw arbitrary lines at degrees of randomness?

That being said, let’s talk about kickers — your last pick, your Mr. Irrelevant. Here’s who I’m targeting at the end of my drafts.

Kickers to Target Late

Younghoe Koo (K – ATL)

In 2023, the Atlanta Falcons had the third-worst touchdown percentage inside the red zone. That’s good news for a kicker’s fantasy stock. Sure, Atlanta had a major coaching overhaul and will have Kirk Cousins under center this year. However, do you know which team had the fourth-worst red zone TD% last year? The Minnesota Vikings, who were quarterbacked in part by Cousins. We should expect Atlanta’s offense to get a boost this year, but I’m confident in drafting Younghoe Koo in the last round as my kicker.

Ka’imi Fairbairn (K – HOU)

When looking at kicker options, I often look at weather and point spreads. I like streaming a kicker on a team that’s favored to win their game that particular week because (duh) to win a game, you need to score more points than your opponent. Kickers score fantasy points when they score real-life points.

The Houston Texans are favorites in their first two games (at Indianapolis, vs Chicago). Indianapolis’ stadium is a dome and Houston’s has a retractable roof, meaning for the first two weeks of the season, weather will not be an issue for Ka’imi Fairbairn.

Jason Myers (K – SEA)

The Seahawks are five-point favorites in Week 1 at home against the Broncos. The over/under is fairly low at 42.5 points, meaning Vegas doesn’t expect this one to be a touchdown-fest. Jason Myers has kicked for Seattle for five seasons, so unfamiliarity with his home field is certainly not something we need to worry about. All of these things give Myers a pretty high Week 1 floor.

Jason Sanders (K – MIA)

Where were you for the Jason Sanders 22-point game of Week 16 last season? He single-handedly willed many teams to a semi-final win. In Week 1, the Dolphins are 3.5-point favorites in a game with the second-highest over/under. Even if the Dolphins score more touchdowns than we’d like, the floor of a handful of extra points makes Sanders a solid option.

Cairo Santos (K – CHI)

In Weeks 10-17 last season, no kicker averaged more fantasy points per game than Cairo Santos. With rookie Caleb Williams now under center, the Bears may be trepidatious to try anything too risky close to the end zone. The Bears could be more likely to take the safer points a field goal attempt provides than make Williams chuck turnover-worthy throws because he’s trying to force something down the field or even go for it on fourth down.

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