Kickers.

[Triplec223]

Kickers are the bain of my (and probably many others') existence. It seems like a crapshoot every week, but if you hit it right, these guys can make a HUGE difference for you. I really have no way to gauge which kicker is going to do what on a given week - I just pick one that's going up a somewhat decent D and hope for the best.

HOWEVER, I think it may be useful for some (read: me) if we got some strategies that you all use in picking your kickers every week.

Do most of you just get a good one and then plug-and-play?

Do you just pick up who had a lot of FG last week?

Do you go to the trouble of finding out which team has allowed the most FG attempts (to me this seems like the most logical strategy, but where can you find this info?

[IHaveHumanPlayers]

A lot of times I'll draft a kicker and stick with him, but occasionally there are kickers available that have good match-ups and are on a team that stalls in the redzone.

[MiniDitka]

I always look for a few things when picking kickers:

1) Guys who can kick with consistency in the 40s and 50s.
2) Playing in a dome
3) On a team that has trouble scoring in the red zone or is going against a good red zone D (cover 2 D's seem to yield a lot of field goals)

I don't always need to have all 3 to play them. I personally like the dome strategy the best. And always watch for the weather if you are playing a kicker in the northern states. The cold and wind don't help too much.

I personally like to work the waiver wires a lot with kickers. I picked up Bironas last year for his monster game and Longwell put up 19 for me already this year and won it for me.

[LT Blue Colt]

Funny, this is something I've looked into a lot more this season too. I've used the strategy of picking guys that kick inside vs. out, but this season (And I know it's only been 2 weeks) I've looked for guys who's teams are going to score a lot. Or go against a poor defense. Like last week. NYG vs. STL. My reasoning behind picking up Carney and starting him, was I knew the Giants were probably going to win, and by a large margin. I just so happened to get lucky on the whole playing inside a dome thing. But, anyway, if the kickers team doesn't have to play from behind, he's probably going to get more FG chances. No going on 4th down. If a better offense is going to be playing a poor defense, then the score is going to be high. That doesn't mean all TD's. There's actually probably going to be a lot of points contributed by the kicker. One year I tried to play kickers off redzone defenses, but it didn't work well for me. It always seems if a team was good in the redzone, then they could be good elsewhere. I'd end up with a kicker who had like a FG and a couple extra points. This week I think Carney is still going to do good against MIA, but I'm looking pretty hard at Matt Prater (Denver's #1 offense) and going up against New Orleans #29 defense. And I'm sure in a lot of leagues he's still on the FA list. Everyone is trying to pick up Denver receivers and trade for Cutler, but there's Prater probably sittin' on the bench.