The kicker position is under attack. Daily fantasy sports sites are starting to drop the kicker from their lineups, seasonal leagues are either doing away with kickers or limiting their scoring and the NFL is pushing extra points back almost 20 yards.

It was my hope that the fantasy football industry would react to the new NFL rules regarding kickers and adjust the scoring for extra points. However, as of this writing, it doesn’t appear that is going to happen. That does not mean there aren’t strategies in selecting and using kickers in fantasy football.

Many fantasy owners give little to no thought about the kicker position. Meanwhile, every single season you will have at least a week or two that come down to the wire in which five points or less decides your fate. It isn’t rocket science, but there are some very simple strategies to keep in mind when it comes to choosing a kicker for your fantasy team.

When drafting a kicker, you should gravitate towards one who plays in a calm, warm weather climate or in a domed stadium. This will improve your chances at long distance field goals and scoring in general. This is especially important as we get into the cold weather months in which one big snowstorm can completely shut you out. Sure the Packers are a high scoring offense, but do you really want to put your faith in Mason Crosby who gets to play at least 10 games in horrible climates such as Green Bay, Chicago and Minnesota? No thank you.

I also like to draft a kicker with a late bye week, preferably week eight or later. This provides ample time to structure your roster before you have to make a move to add another kicker during the bye week. Usually by the midpoint in the season we haven’t seen much weather impact yet and ideally you’ll have already had many of your other skill position players pass their bye weeks. This helps with roster space and allows you to possibly roster two kickers for a week if needed.

Don’t play the week-to-week kicker game either. Chances are everybody else in your league is probably playing that game and it causes everyone to spend way too much FAAB on kickers. Select a high quality kicker in the draft and stick with him week in and week out unless there is an injury or other obvious situation in which you need to cut him. The goal is to maximize the points you earn from this spot by accumulating all of the points that kicker amasses. Trying to play matchups or playing the waiver wire from week to week for your kicker ends up with the exact opposite happening. When you get greedy you can cost yourself points instead of accumulating more. Trust me on this folks. The entire idea that kickers’ points are random means trying to pinpoint a new one every week which is practically impossible.

Finally, don’t wait until the last round to draft your kicker. I draft my kicker in the second or third to last round to ensure I get the guy who best fits the criteria above. Waiting until the final round will force you to be stuck with someone instead of you controlling who you want. At this point in the draft you are usually just grabbing backups anyways so don’t shy away from locking down the best possible player that will have an impact on your team every single week.