Why you shouldn’t draft a kicker or defense until the last two rounds

in Sports by griffn — September 4, 2009 at 12:00 pm | 0 comments

David Akers will be the #1 kicker in fantasy football this year. Or he'll be #10. Honestly, it doesn't matter.

Okay, so you’ve already got my quarterback, running back, wide receiver, and tight end fantasy rankings memorized, and you’re ready to pillage your way through your league’s draft this weekend. But if you’re wondering where my kicker and defense rankings are, don’t hold your breath.

Here’s the thing about those two positions. Most fantasy leagues only have 10-12 teams, and very rarely does anyone draft more than one kicker or defense. Which means that even if you wait till the very last round to draft one, you’ll still get a top ten player. This is true of tight ends as well, but the #1 tight end last year (Tony Gonzalez) scored twice as many points as the #10 tight end (Zach Miller). How early you draft a player at that position matters. How early you draft a kicker does not, because the difference between the #1 kicker and the #10 kicker last year was about 20 fantasy points. That’s about 1 point per game.

How early you draft a defense doesn’t matter either because, although the discrepancy between the #1 and #10 defenses is large, you can usually find the eventual #1 defense in the league sitting on the waiver wire in week one. For example, the two best fantasy defenses last year– Baltimore and Pittsburgh– finished 29th and 11th in fantasy points respectively the previous year. The top two defenses in 2007– San Diego and Minnesota– finished 10th and 19th in 2008. So if you spent a high draft pick last year to get San Diego or Minnesota, you ended up with waiver wire fodder. Meanwhile, you probably could have gotten Baltimore off the wire in week one. The position is so volatile from year to year that there’s no point in guessing– just grab one in the second-to-last round and wait till the season starts to see if they’re any good. If not, grab a better one off your league’s waiver wire.

So here’s the moral of the story: if it’s round ten– five more rounds to go– and you’re deciding between drafting a top-rated defense or drafting a sleeper running back, go for the running back every single time. Last year, you could conceivably have drafted DeAngelo Williams or Matt Forte in the tenth round. You don’t get those guys, or even a shot at them, if you’re drafting a defense. In fact, you’re better off drafting a backup tight end than you are a kicker or a defense. Actually, that may or may not be true, but it shows you how much I hate the idea of drafting early at those positions.

Tags: Baltimore Ravens David Akers DeAngelo Williams defenses draft fantasy football kickers Matt Forte Minnesota Vikings NFL Pittsburgh Steelers San Diego Chargers tight ends Tony Gonzalez Zach Miller