This is actually going to be about Fantasy Football Kickers (don't fall asleep just yet). The thing that bugs me as a statistician for Fantasy Football is -- trying to find a numerical pattern/trend in Kickers. They are always the throw away discussion in Fantasy Football -- "all kickers are the same", or "who can figure out kickers"...or Peyton Manning's one time comment about Mike Vanderjagt "The sad thing is, he's a good kicker. But he's an idiot". (Which sums up how most of us feel at some point during an Fantasy Football season about our starting Kicker).

When I was flying by the seat of my pants playing Fantasy Football without any hard statistical research, I had one simple assumption on Kickers -- when in doubt play/grab from waivers the Kickers who are kicking in a dome or good weather...i.e. stay away from bad weather for a Kicker. Logically, we probably all come to that same conclusion. In 2009, logically, we were all wrong.

Give me some latitude on trying to be a junior meteorologist (I'm sure I misinterpreted the weather in a game or two, so figure a margin of error), but I wanted to try to statistically prove (or disprove) my theory -- that  Kickers score (Fantasy Football) better in "nicer" or controlled climates/surroundings. So for 2009 (to the best I could interpret) I classified games in 4 simple ways for weather:

1. "Dome" -- game played indoors/dome
2. "Warm" -- warm to hot conditions
3. "OK" -- mild, "good" football weather...not too hot, not too cold
4. "Cold" -- the players were bundled up, looked annoyed, and/or I could see their breath

There was a decent amount of occurrences (an "occurrence" is a starting Kicker available in that game, each game would have 2 occurrences...one for each side), for each of these 4 categories (I actually had a 5th category..."Snow"...but there was only a couple examples of true snow annoying the players, so I excluded from here). I also have a couple games missing from part time/fill in/temp Kickers. So this is about 94.1% of all the kicking occurrences that happened last season, which should be fairly statistically safe.

• 200 occurrences, I classified as "Warm"
• 116 occurrences, I classified as "Dome"
• 89  occurrences, I classified as "Cold"
• 77 occurrences, I classified as "OK"

*NOTE for the remaining sections, Fantasy Football PPG is the Average Points Per Game based on:

• +3 Points for 1-39 yard FG
• +4 points for 40-49 yard FG
• +5 points for 50+
• -1 for a missed FG (less than 50)
• +1 for a made XP
• I know there are a bunch of variations on Fantasy Football scoring for kickers, but I went with this table....

MYTH  -- "Kicking in better weather is good for a Kicker's Fantasy Football scoring!"

Fantasy Football PPG 2009	Weather
7.6	COLD
7.1	WARM
6.8	OK
6.5	DOME

Kickers actually scored better in the cold weather than they did in any other condition. I kept avoiding "Cold" and reaching for "Dome" all season with kickers, and I was actually achieving the opposite result desired in 2009!

MYTH -- "Well, Kickers are more accurate in controlled conditions..."

Accuracy 39 yards or less 2009	Weather		Accuracy 40+ yards  2009	Weather		Overall Accuracy 2009	Weather
93%	COLD		76%	COLD		86%	COLD
91%	DOME		69%	OK		83%	OK
91%	OK		67%	WARM		81%	WARM
90%	WARM		65%	DOME		79%	DOME

OK, this is too weird. Kickers actually score more (Fantasy Football), and are more accurate the worse the weather is (in 2009). How could this be? Could it be additional concentration due to the elements?

Maybe the better kicking results in colder weather is due to less TD's (stalled off drives due to bad weather), and therefore more FG attempts and less XP attempts? You would be half right. In 2009, you did get more FG attempts per game in the cold...but you also got more XP attempts as well...

Total FG attempts per game	Weather		Total XP attempts per game	Weather
1.93	COLD		2.52	COLD
1.90	WARM		2.48	DOME
1.79	OK		2.35	WARM
1.63	DOME		2.19	OK

The lesson from 2009 is...Kickers in cold weather have more FG and XP attempts per game, kick FG's more accurately, and score more Fantasy Football PPG than in any other weather condition. Far ahead of the kicking Metrics in a Dome. Which all sounds totally insane, but if my weather interpretations are right -- then it's odd but it's true. If true, changes the in-season decision making on picking up/dropping kickers.

We track this trend as the season develops, and report out trends and future projected opportunity on Kickers (and all positions) weekly on our website to help improve our clients edge during the season. Every point extra you squeeze makes a difference. Our 2010 "season pass" client services will be available soon on the Metrics website.

 

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