Photo: USA Today Sports

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.

Week 5 Results

Jason Sanders (1 FG attempt, 1 FG, 4 XPs, 7 points)

Outside of a goal-line pass that was intercepted and returned 102 yards for a touchdown, the Miami Dolphins didn't have much trouble with the Giants in Week 5. Sanders scored a workmanlike 7 points and finished tied for 13th among kickers.

Riley Patterson (0 FG attempts, 0 FGs, 6 XPs, 6 points)

Another "nothing but extra points" day for us here at Rent-a-Kicker (highlighting a week where our five chosen offenses scored 20 touchdowns against just six attempted field goals). To some extent, this is a hazard of targeting teams that are huge favorites. But it's also a bit of bad luck; the Top 5 scoring teams last year scored 282 touchdowns and attempted 150 field goals, a ratio of 1.88 touchdowns per field goal attempt. That should work out to more along the lines of 17 touchdowns against 9 attempted field goals. Regardless, it's not the end of the world for a kicker to go without a field goal attempt if his offense is going to provide him with six or more extra points to offset; Patterson finished 17th on the week.

Greg Joseph (2 FG attempts, 2 FGs, 2 XPs, 8 points)

The Vikings managed to avoid a blowout against the Chiefs, but they avoided a shootout, as well. Either way, Joseph's 8 points were the highest mark among our picks and 12th-best in Week 5.

Joey Slye (3 FG attempts, 2 FGs, 0 XPs, 6 points)

The Washington Commanders did not manage to avoid a blowout, and the result was a couple of missed opportunities for their kicker as the team attempted a 2-point conversion after both touchdowns. Slye still managed to make two of his three kicks (missing from 46 yards) to score 6 points and tie for 17th.

Jake Moody (0 FG attempts, 0 FGs, 6 XPs, 6 points)

Our second "nothing but extra points" game of the week. Everything written about Patterson above applies to Moody, but I'd also add: The fact that San Francisco was able to do that against a tough Cowboys defense bodes very well for Moody's prospects going forward.

A Tip for Holding Kickers

In Week 4, I gave a quick rule of thumb for when to hold on to a kicker instead of streaming. As a recap: the order of players within a tier is only of minor importance, but each tier you drop down costs you maybe half a point per game in expectation. I'd start a kicker I wanted to hold over an option rated one tier higher, but I'd rather avoid starting one over a kicker rated two tiers higher if I could avoid it, and I'd never start a kicker over an option rated three or four tiers higher.

I also provided a list of kickers I would consider holding rather than continuing to stream. Since that seems potentially useful, I'm going to turn it into a recurring weekly feature. Here's the current list (in no particular order): Harrison Butker, Tyler Bass, Jake Elliott, Jason Sanders, Brandon Aubrey, and Jake Moody.

Any other kicker is, in my opinion, expendable for anyone with a better matchup this week.

Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 25 weekly recommendations. Those 25 kickers have averaged 7.68 points, compared to 6.82 in 2022, 8.45 in 2021, 7.39 in 2020, and 7.39 in 2019. That average would currently rank 11th at the position (though many of the players ahead have spent significant time on waivers, as well). Our top weekly recommendation averages 7.4 points per game, while all recommended "great plays" average 8.6. The former figure would rank 12th, the latter figure would rank 10th.

If you've been following along, you should expect to have scored between 37 (the average of our top picks) and 43.2 points (the average of all our great plays). Here are the Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP as well as how many points they would have gotten you (giving a 6-point bonus for any weeks they may have missed): Justin Tucker (27), Daniel Carlson (23), Harrison Butker (44), Tyler Bass (45), Evan McPherson (35), Younghoe Koo (33), Jason Meyers (43), Jake Elliott (59), Cameron Dicker (36), Graham Gano (26), Brandon McManus (37), Matt Gay (38). Our streaming amalgam has outscored 8-9 of the Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP as well as the overall average of all drafted kickers (36.2 points).

Week 6 Situations

**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. 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.**

Great Plays