Let's kick off with the first 2011 rankings. These are based on the following criteria (roughly in the following order of importance): quality of offense, quality of kicker, age of kicker, kicker's home kicking conditions (dome, warm, cold), kicker's job security, long-term success (a bit of keeper/dynasty slant).
I think with kickers, past performance is no guarantee of future success, so these rankings probably will look much different than 2010 end of year leaderboard.
I didn't factor a scoring system, but I usually play in leagues that award a point extra for longer FGs (40 = 4 pts, 50 = 5 pts, etc.), so that may be a subjective factor here.
Besides player movement, I think the factors that will cause the most movement in the off-season will be strength of schedule (easy schedule is likely to result in more points) and change in the quality of team offenses. For example, if Minnesota's offense improves, Longwell may move up a lot, but probably not out of his tier.
Fire away!
Tier 1
Gostkowski, Stephen, nwe
Kaeding, Nate, sdg
Bryant, Matt, atl
Rackers, Neil htx
Tier 2
Crosby, Mason, gnb
Akers, David, phi
Vinatieri, Adam, clt
Tier 3
Janikowski, Sebastian, rai
Cundiff, Billy, rav
Bironas, Rob, oti
Prater, Matt, den
Tynes, Lawrence, nyg
Scobee, Josh, jax
Carpenter, Dan, mia
Feely, Jay, crd
Longwell, Ryan, min
Gould, Robbie, chi
Hartley, Garrett, nor
Tier 4
Hanson, Jason, det
Suisham, Shaun, pit
Barth, Connor, tam
Succop, Ryan, kan
Kasay, John, car
Brown, Josh, ram
Dawson, Phil, cle
Tier 5
Reed, Jeff, sfo
Nugent, Mike, cin
Mare, Olindo, sea
Lindell, Rian, buf
Folk, Nick, nyj
Buehler, David, dal
Gano, Graham, was
Tier 6
Graham, Shayne, FA?
Hauschka, Steve, FA?
Nedney, Joe, FA?
Brown, Kris, FA?
Lindholm, Garrett, FA?
Carney, John, FA?
