If you don't have to draft a kicker at this point of the preseason - don't.

The default format for Yahoo! Fantasy Football and many other leagues allow you to leave your draft without selecting a kicker. You don't need to leave the draft with a full starting roster. You do need to pick up a kicker before Week 1 as you'd take a zero if you left that starting slot blank. Is it worth it to skip taking a kicker for an extra reserve you may just cut between now and Week 1?

I think the answer is yes. Here's the case for not taking a kicker.

First, kickers are almost random. The fantasy football community does a poor job of predicting who will be a top kicker. Since 2006, kickers taken in the top 125 overall of ADP haven't finished in the top 12 at the end of the season in fantasy points by a whopping 71 percent of the time (10 of 14). And those are kickers that fantasy owners were excited enough to take in the first 11 rounds of a 12-team draft.

It gets even worse when you look at all the kickers taken in an average draft. In a 12-team league that starts 9 players (QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, TE, K, DEF) and has an eight person bench (a roster of 16), there are 192 draft selections. Kickers since 2006 taken in the top 192 overall of ADP have finished outside the top 12 at their position 79 percent of the time (93 of 117). So you have a 21 percent chance that your kicker is going to be someone better than freely available on the waiver wire.

Meanwhile, a considerable amount of players that end up with significant fantasy value end up undrafted. Just look at the last three years at the number of players that finished in the top 192 in VBD (so ranked against their position) that were undrafted or taken outside the top 192 picks.

2010 - 85 players (including No .1 in overall value/VBD, Arian Foster; and 3 of the top 10 in VBD)
2011 - 77 players  (including No. 9 in overall value/VBD, Cam Newton)
2012 - 75 players  (including No. 5 in overall value/VBD, Alfred Morris)
2013 - 54 players (including No. 45 in overall value/VBD Julian Edelman & No. 46 Zac Stacy)

Last year was a down year for players available on the waiver wire. But even then on average over the past four years, you had a 38 percent chance that an undrafted player would finish the season in the top 192. Of course, it's not that easy since there are a lot of undrafted players. But I'd assume that most of those undrafted players who finish in the top 192 were on the cusp of being drafted. They're backups, rookies and players who a team couldn't find a roster spot in the preseason.

And it's not clear when those undrafted players accumulated their value according to my study. Maybe it was after a starter got hurt in Week 7.

But the overall trend here is pretty clear. The odds are the kicker you take, especially if you take one lower in the rankings, is highly likely to not finish in the top 12 among kickers. You'll probably be dropping him at some point. At the same time there's a significant chance that some undrafted player will become a top 192 player.

Why not take the free option on a reserve and pick up your kicker based on who's available in free agency?

I'd also argue you can do the same for team defenses, which are equally random and hard to predict. But some may not want to go that far. I may in my Stopa Law Firm league auction next week that drafts on Yahoo's software.

(I originally posted this blog in 2013 and have updated the data)