What should Fantasy Football owners expect from Cody Parkey in 2018?
Well, we’re almost done with our Fantasy Football projections series as we’ve reached the kicker. Kicking for the Chicago Bears has been woeful for the franchise the last couple of years. Ryan Pace has been lampooned by several fans and media members for cutting loose Robbie Gould a couple of years ago.
Most people like to ignore that cutting Gould opened up money to sign Josh Sitton and stabilize the offensive line, and when the Bears were losing games left and right, not having a great field goal kicker wasn’t exactly at the top of the target list.
But Pace has brought in Matt Nagy and has most of the roster in place that he wants and the Bears feel they are ready to make a leap this year to being a competitive football team. If that is indeed the case, the Bears need a kicker, and that’s why they went out and signed Cody Parkey.
Parkey is only 26 years of age and has had some solid seasons thus far in his career. He spent his first two seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles before moving over to the Miami Dolphins the last two seasons.
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Parkey is a career 86.4% accurate field goal kicker and has a decent leg from long-range, he’s a career 6 of 7 from 50+ yards including four for four when he was in the difficult conditions of Philadelphia. Parkey has the potential to be a solid kicker for Chicago for several years.
Parkey will go as the Bears’ offense will go. The last couple of seasons, the Bears’ offense has been so dreadful that having an inaccurate kicker involved with that offense would doom your fantasy team.
But with an improved offense and an improved kicker is Parkey still off the fantasy radar? The conservative answer is yes. For Parkey to jump into the top 10 or 12 on the fantasy radar, the Bears offense is going to have to jump into the ‘very good’ level. That’s a tall order for an offense that was one of the worst in the NFL (if not the worst). With an improving young QB and plenty of new weapons, the Bears offense should significantly improve, but is it fair to say they would jump from roughly 30th into the average category? Anything more than that would be difficult to imagine.
If the Bears offense is average, with Parkey making kicks, that would make the Bears’ kicker in the fantasy world average as well. That puts Parkey in the K2 category. Most teams don’t bother to carry two kickers on the roster, but if your team requires two kickers, you can draft Parkey as your K2 with high upside potential.
Next: 2018 Mitch Trubisky Fantasy Projection
If you are only carrying one kicker on your team, you should keep an eye on Parkey when your kicker is on a bye and see if he has a favorable matchup to start him. If you are in traditional formats, Parkey should stay on the waiver wire.
Cody Parkey stat projections: 29-36 FGs (6 for 6 20-29, 9 for 10 30-39, 10 for 14 40-49, 4 for 6 50+, 81%, 29-31 XPs, 94%, 116 points