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 2 Kicker Results

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.

Tyler Loop (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 5 XPs, 11 points)

One of the ironies of predicting kickers is that field goals are worth significantly more than extra points, but extra points are significantly better at predicting future scoring. Loop had a very good day, finishing as the 7th-best fantasy kicker, but the fact that his team scored so readily bodes especially well for his prospects going forward.

Matt Prater (3 FG on 3 attempts, 3 XPs, 12 points)

Prater right now is one of the biggest arguments for not spending significant capital on a kicker-- top kickers get hurt. Of course, top players get hurt at other positions, too... but when Joe Burrow leaves the game, Jake Browning doesn't tend to produce at the same level in his place. Replacement kickers largely do. Prater is an excellent example; he was unemployed in Week 1 and nailing 50-yarders for Buffalo by Week 2 en route to a 6th-place fantasy finish.

Chad Ryland (2 FGs on 2 Attempts, 3 XPs, 9 points)

Arizona let off the gas a bit early against Carolina, scoring only once after halftime, but Ryland's eight first-half points were enough to keep him afloat. He finished the week tied for 9th in points.

Evan McPherson (1 FG on 1 attempt, 4 XPs, 7 points)

An injury to Joe Burrow threatened to sink the Bengals' offense, but they managed to rally with backup Jake Browning en route to 31 points, seven of them by kicker McPherson, who tied for 19th.

Will Reichard (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 0 XPs, 6 points)

The Vikings offense looks lost, and until they start showing signs of life, Reichard will likely tumble down our weekly recommendations. He had the fortune of scoring 100% of his team's points, which salvaged an otherwise potentially awful day, but still finished 23rd among kickers.

Kicker Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made ten weekly recommendations. Those ten kickers have averaged 9.00 points. Our top three picks average 10 points-- compared to a long-run average of 7.67. That would currently rank 7th at the position, but rankings aren't too meaningful on such small samples. (Last year, 10 points would have led all kickers by nearly a point.) We've been a little bit lucky so far this season and I'd expect that to regress, but it's nice to bank some extra points early on.

We'll continue to track averages and ranks over time, and in a few weeks, we'll begin comparing to the Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP.

Week 3 Kicker 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. 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.**