No position is more unpredictable in fantasy football than kickers. Year after year after year, no position has a lower correlation between where they’re drafted before the season and where they finish after the season. No position has a lower correlation between how they score in one week and how they score in the next. No position has a lower correlation between projected points and actual points.
In addition, placekicker is the position that has the smallest spread between the best players and the middle-of-the-pack players for fantasy. Finally, most fantasy GMs will only carry one kicker at a time, which means a dozen or more starting kickers are sitting around on waivers at any given time. Given all of this, it rarely makes sense to devote resources to the position. Instead, GMs are best served by rotating through whichever available kicker has the best weekly matchup.
Every week, I’ll rank the situations each kicker finds himself in (ignoring the talent of the kicker himself) to help you find perfectly startable production off the waiver wire.
Every week, we highlight the Top 5 recommendations from our model who are available on waivers in at least 50% of fantasy leagues (per NFL.com roster data). Here’s how last week’s top options fared.
Andy Borregales (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 3 XPs, 9 points)
Borregales had a solid day in a routine win for the Patriots, finishing with 9 points, which tied for 13th in a strong week for the position.
Lucas Havrisik (0 FGs on 0 attempts, 1 XP, 1 point)
The Packers continue to go back and forth on McManus, giving him another game off in Week 11 to see if he can heal up a bit more. They turned back to Havrisik in his absence. The last time Havrisik kicked for the Packers, he set the franchise record with a 61-yard field goal. This week was… not quite as successful, as Havrisik missed two extra point attempts and lost his opportunity for a third as Green Bay went for a two-point conversion. His 1 point ranked last among all kickers (and was especially bad in leagues that penalize for missed kicks).
Harrison Mevis (0 FGs on 0 attempts, 3 XPs, 3 points)
In his two games since joining the Rams, Mevis has attempted 9 extra points and 0 field goals. That kind of ratio is wildly unsustainable and will regress, though that’s no comfort to anyone who rostered him this week, as his 3 points ranked 26th among kickers.
Riley Patterson (3 FGs on 3 attempts, 1 XP, 10 points)
A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have expected the Dolphins’ kicker to rank high in the model at any point this year, but a strong offensive showing against Buffalo put them back on Vegas’ radar. An anemic performance against the Washington Commanders might take them back off Vegas’ radar, but thanks to an offense that continually stalled out in the red zone, at least Patterson got us 10 points, first, tying for 6th place among kickers.
Jake Elliott (3 FGs on 3 attempts, 1 XP, 10 points)
A whopping 20% of the league (six teams) finished with 16 points coming on three field goals and one touchdown; I can’t recall seeing anything like that before. The Eagles joined the Dolphins, Browns, Texans, Panthers, and Raiders in the 16-point club, and Elliott finished in a big tie for 6th place among kickers.
To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 55 weekly recommendations. Those 55 kickers have averaged 7.44 points. Our top three weekly picks average 7.48 points (compared to a long-run average of 7.67). That would currently rank 9th at the position.
Meanwhile, here are the Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP, along with how many points they have scored so far this season. For any week a kicker didn’t play (whether due to injury or bye), I will add six points to account for replacement-level performance.
The average of our top three freely available kickers each week would score 82.3 points to this point, which matches or exceeds seven of the top twelve kickers by preseason ADP. The average of the top 12 kickers by preseason ADP would score 80.1 points, giving us an advantage of 0.2 points per game.
**Here is a list of the teams with the best matchups based on Vegas projected totals and stadium, along with the expected kicker for each team. The top five players who are on waivers in over 50% of leagues based on NFL.com roster percentages are italicized and will be highlighted in next week’s column. The top three players will be included in our running average. Also, note that these rankings specifically apply to situations; teams will occasionally change kickers mid-week, but any endorsements apply equally to whatever kicker winds up eventually getting the start.**
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