No one really pays much attention to kickers in fantasy football. You pick one up at the end of your draft, keep him until he sucks or his bye week rolls around, then toss him aside and pick up someone else. Preseason kicker 'rankings' are really nothing more than an obligatory reminder that the Tuckers and Hauschkas are marginally better than the rest, but even Chandler Catanzaro (who?) would have gotten you 114 points last season in leagues with standard scoring.
So, when the NFL decided to revamp the point after touchdown rules and move the spot of the kick from the two yard line to the 15, changing a 20-yard chip shot into a... well, a 33-yard chip shot, there was really no reason for that change to impact your fantasy plans for 2015.
That's not going to stop me from trying, though.
The rules change really includes two parts: in addition to the kick being moved back, defenses are now allowed to return a blocked kick or intercepted/fumbled ball on a two-point convert attempt for two points of their own. This does, marginally change the thinking involved in whether or not to go for two. While kickers are still going to hit on most of their attempts (the difference between the success rate on a 20-year kick and a 33-yard kick is something like 5%), the risk of giving up two points on a block and 85-yard return would seem to be higher than on a pick/fumble and a 98-yard return, especially when the offense presumably has some faster players on the field to track down the player who made the pick from behind.
So, I decided to do a home-brew kicker ranking for 2015 based on three factors:
1) 2014 standard scoring
2) Career accuracy on kicks of 30-39 yards (the new PAT distance)
3) Team passing targets inside the five yard line 2014, as a proxy for the likelihood that the team will go for two more often and take points out of the kicker's pocket
(The theory with the third point is that teams who have red zone receiving weapons they trust are more likely to trust them with two-point conversions under the new rules, and thus their kickers will rank lower due to fewer PATs. Teams rarely treat two-point attempts as standard goal line attempts, and use spread formations rather than jumbo packages, so passing attempts rather than running attempts seemed the easiest stat to approximate that. Major personnel moves, such as Jimmy Graham to Seattle, won't get captured with this, but it'll do for now).
Without further ado, I give you the new gold standard (cough) of 2015 kicker rankings. The listed ranks, in order, are for 2014 scoring (pro-rated for 16 games if necessary), then 30-39 yard accuracy, then team targets inside the five:
1. Steven Hauschka, Sea (5/4/10) - Graham's presence could hurt his PATs, but based on last season Seattle didn't throw that much from in close
2. Dan Carpenter, Buf (7/3/13) - coaching change can only help, as Rex Ryan didn't throw much inside the five with the Jets
3. Justin Tucker, Bal (11/1/20) - most accurate kicker in the NFL in the 30-39 yard range, and Trestman's Bears threw about as much inside the five as the Ravens did last year
4. Nick Folk, NYJ (17/10/6) - see Carpenter, as Jets (with Brandon Marshall) could now throw more inside the five, which would hurt his ranking
5. Dan Bailey, Dal (9/2/24) - Dez is a strong red zone target, but Bailey's just a hair behind Tucker for 30-39 yard accuracy
6. Randy Bullock, Hou (10/9/16) - solid across the board
7. Matt Prater, Det (15/7/14) - team switch actually helps him here
8. Cody Parkey, Phi (2/19/15) - first guy on the list below 90% from 30-39 yards, and we know Chip Kelly likes to appear clever (i.e. "Let's go for two every time, guys!"), so this could end up being way too high
9. Blair Walsh, Min (23/8/7) - excellent intersection of accuracy and a team that didn't put it up inside the five
10. Kai Forbath, Was (27/11/1) - no team threw it less inside the five, so he's got that going for him
11. Stephen Gostkowski, NE (1/13/28) - Gronk plus slightly sub-90% accuracy in the 30-39 range could be bad news for Gostkowski investors
12. Robbie Gould, Chi (14/12/19) - mediocre across the board
13. Sea Bass Janikowski, Oak (30/6/11) - if the Oakland offense is even adequate this year, he could make a huge jump up the rankings
14. Matt Bryant, Atl (13/5/31) - Matt Ryan does like to pass from inside the five
15. Chandler Catanzaro, Ari (20/24/5) - if my 'inside the five' theory is bunk, he's going to be traded for a sheep at midseason. That was a Settlers of Catan(-zaro) joke. You're welcome
16. Patrick Murray, TB (29/20/3) - see Catanzaro, without the bad board game joke
17. Mike Nugent, Cin (18/30/4) - among the worst from 30-39 yards
18. Connor Barth, Den (6/15/32) - scored a ridiculous 60 points in five games for Denver last year, but Peyton loooooooves to pass from inside the five
19. Mason Crosby, GB (4/21/30) - not accurate from 30-39, and Aaron Rodgers does like to pass from inside the five
20. Ryan Succop, Ten (31/22/2) - even the Titans' gun-shy red zone offense can't save his ranking
21. Josh Scobee, Jac (32/16/8) - see Succop
22. Graham Gano, Car (16/32/9) - barely hits 75% of his tries from 30-39. That's a formula for getting cut under the new rules. If I factored in running QBs, he would have done even worse
23. Cairo Santos, KC (21/25/12) - not much to recommend him other than his cool first name
24. Adam Vinatieri, Ind (3/29/26) - poor accuracy from 30-39, and Andrew Luck does like to pass from inside the five
25. Shaun Suisham, Pit (8/28/23) - see Vinatieri, except for the Andrew Luck part
26. Josh Brown, NYG (19/14/29) - more OBJ equals less PAT
27. Phil Dawson, SF (22/23/17) - coaching change doesn't seem likely to help him, either, if it means more read option for Kaepernick
28. whoever wins the job, Cle (28/18/18) - I used the average of everyone else's 30-39 yard accuracy (88.1%). It didn't help
29. Caleb Sturgis, Mia (12/27/25) - the Ray Finkle of his generation, maybe. Also, Tannehill liked to pass from inside the five even before he got Jordan Cameron
30. whoever wins the job, NO (26/17/27) - see "whoever wins the job, Cle", plus Drew Brees does like to pass from inside the five. Losing Graham could make him like it less, though
31. Greg Zuerlein, StL (25/26/21) - nearly bottom 10 rankings across the board, but not as bad as...
32. Nick Novak, SD (24/31/22) - career 77.6% from 30-39, coming off a poor season, and a team that's fairly frisky inside the five. The trifecta