Posts tagged NateKaeding at FanHouse

FanHouse positional rankings are compiled weekly by the staff in order to provide answers to possible lineup questions. These are assuming most leagues use Fleaflicker's standard scoring structure. If you need clarification, or have funky league rules, feel free to shoot us an email question.

More Rankings: OVER/UNDER | Running Backs | Wide Recievers | Tight Ends | DSTs | Kickers

Welcome to the crapshoot. Generally speaking, with kickers in fantasy, you'd like to have a guy playing for a team that's going to put a lot of points on the board. Of course, you'd rather field goals than extra points, so an offensive machine might be the kiss of death. Good luck to all.

Best value: Josh Scobee. The Jags are good enough to move the ball on the Titans. The Titans are good enough to stop the Jags. Translation: Look for multiple field goals.
Worst value: Rob Bironas. The Titans aren't good enough on offense to pile up the scoring opportunities. You may be looking at a single field goal or extra point here.

The Rankings
1. Nick Folk, Cowboys, at CLE
2. Nate Kaeding, Chargers, vs. CAR
3. Stephen Gostkowski, Patriots, vs. KC
4. Adam Vinatieri, Colts, vs. CHI
5. Mason Crosby, Packers, vs. MIN

Training camps are underway, the NFL season is right around the corner, and to get you ready for 2008, FanHouse previews all 32 teams, "heat index" style. We'll rate each club in 10 categories on a scale of 1 to 10, high score wins.

Quarterback: Bear in mind, I'm a tremendous Philip Rivers fan. So despite the hilarity of Ape's Marmalard skits, I don't laugh (much). And the fact that everyone focuses on Rivers poor throws amuses me some, since Norv Turner consistently put him in horrible situations for most of the season. I won't mention that he has the stones to go toe-to-toe with Tom Brady sans ACL. Anyway, two years ago he was prepared to take his game to the next level and somehow regressed in 2007. Won't happen this season, providing his coach is smart. Crap. Heat Index: 8

Running Back: Am I allowed to give a heat index of 11? Because, like Nigel's amps, LaDanian Tomlinson is a little bit louder/better than anyone else. The loss of Michael Turner hurts a little, but the poor man's lightning-thunder backup combo of Darren Sproles and Jacob Hester is going to be a pretty devastating change of pace factor for opposing defenses. Heat Index: 11

Wide Receiver: Vincent Jackson was supposed to rise up and become a legit number one last year. Whoops. Fortunately, Chris Chambers and his potentially record breaking low catch rate (based on target % anyway) are in town now. Craig Davis will blossom decently this year and Malcolm Floyd is a pretty nasty, athletic freak, red zone target type. Oh yes, and Antonio Gates counts here too, so there's that. Heat Index: 9

Staff rankings were compiled by averaging the individual rankings of each member of Fantasy Fanhouse. The rankings are based on standard leagues where you gain points for yardage and scores. Or something ...

You've seen my thoughts on using a kicker in fantasy football before -- and if you haven't, click on the link, please. Those of you that are sane will agree and take action. Those that insist on using kickers, well, we've got the information for you. Please don't mistake my distaste for the position to mean that I didn't do the research. Our staff did the work necessary on this position to bring you the best fantasy data possible. Hopefully you put it to good use in your free league on fleaflicker.

The FanHouse top five
1. Nate Kaeding, Chargers
2. Nick Folk, Cowboys
3. Mason Crosby, Packers
4. Shayne Graham, Bengals
5. Phil Dawson, Browns

With Fantasy Football season ready to kick in high gear, Fantasy FanHouse is here to preview each and every team. Listen closely, you're almost guaranteed to win your FREE fantasy football league, only over at Fleaflicker.

Meet The ...
2008 Super Bowl Champions. Sure, saying that has little to do with fantasy football. I just wanted to get my prediction out there before the billion main-stream experts made theirs. It's not just the star power of LaDanian Tomlinson, Antonio Gates, Philip Rivers, Shawn Merriman, and Antonio Cromartie. They are loaded everywhere except head coach. The stigma follows Norv Turner in the public eye, however, he did lead the team to the AFC Championship game last season after a troubling start. A proverbial corner has been turned ...

The Breakout
The big boys are all well-established, so you have to dig a bit deeper to find the next one to step up. I'm going with Chris Chambers. He's had so much talent wasted by the dregs at QB in Miami -- and he still had an incredible 2005 campaign -- and is now clearly the top wideout on a prolific offense. He's had over a half-season to acclimate himself to the Chargers offense and develop a rapport with Rivers. After a full pre-season with the squad, you can expect Chambers to come on like gangbusters this season. His career highs were all set in '05 (82 catches, 1118 yards, 11 TDs) and will be challenged this season; especially the yards as the Chargers look to spread the field vertically.

With Fantasy Football season ready to kick in high gear, Fantasy FanHouse is here to preview each and every team. Listen closely, you're almost guaranteed to win your FREE fantasy football league, only over at Fleaflicker.

Meet The ...
2008 Super Bowl Champions. Sure, saying that has little to do with fantasy football. I just wanted to get my prediction out there before the billion mainstream experts made theirs. It's not just the star power of LaDanian Tomlinson, Antonio Gates, Philip Rivers, Shawn Merriman, and Antonio Cromartie. They are loaded everywhere except head coach. The stigma follows Norv Turner in the public eye, however, he did lead the team to the AFC Championship game last season after a troubling start. A proverbial corner has been turned ...

The Breakout
The big boys are all well-established, so you have to dig a bit deeper to find the next one to step up. I'm going with Chris Chambers. He's had so much talent wasted by the dregs at quarterback in Miami -- and he still had an incredible 2005 campaign -- and is now clearly the top wideout on a prolific offense. He's had over a half-season to acclimate himself to the Chargers offense and develop a rapport with Rivers. After a full preseason with the squad, you can expect Chambers to come on like gangbusters this season. His career highs were all set in '05 (82 catches, 1,118 yards, 11 TDs) and will be challenged this season; especially in yardage as the Chargers look to spread the field vertically.

In the days since the Patriots beat the Chargers in the AFC Championship Game, there has been much debate about whether quarterback Philip Rivers hurt his team by playing on a severely injured knee, and whether running back LaDainian Tomlinson hurt his team by sitting out on a mildly injured knee.

But a third Charger played with an injury, kicker Nate Kaeding. And that injury, to his lower left leg, was apparently a much more serious injury than he was letting on. Dan Pompei reported on ESPN this morning that the injury to Kaeding's plant leg included a broken bone, but that Kaeding played despite the pain.

Yesterday I noted that Colts safety Bob Sanders made a rare dumb mistake when he drew a 15-yard penalty for taunting Chargers kicker Nate Kaeding. I also noted that Sanders and Kaeding were teammates at Iowa and were probably friends.

Kaeding confirmed that after the game:

Kaeding took no offense to Sanders' actions. In fact, he started the byplay after hitting an extra point after San Diego's first score. Sanders is one of the Colts' outside rushers against placement kicks.

"I grabbed him, smiling," Kaeding said. "We were all smiling."

The smiling ended when an official flagged Sanders after the miss.

"It was just a case of a referee not knowing what the real deal was," Kaeding said. "I couldn't go up to the ref and be like, 'We're just buddies' after he already threw the flag."

It was a mistake on Sanders' part, but a forgivable one. There was no ill intent, and, ultimately, it wasn't taunting so much as good-natured ribbing. Too bad for the Colts that the ref didn't know that.