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 3 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.

Matt Prater (1 FG on 2 attempts, 4 XPs, 7 points)

A miss from 39 yards was the difference between a decent day and a great one for Prater, but Buffalo's offense remains potent. He should be a regular starter for us going forward-- at least until he's picked up in 50% of leagues. His seven points tied for 15th on the week.

Tyler Loop (1 FG on 1 attempt, 3 XPs, 6 points)

Our hot start unfortunately cooled significantly last week, as our other "Great Play" only scored six points. The potential was there for a bigger day-- Baltimore passed up a chip-shot field goal to go for it (unsuccessfully) on 4th and 2, and passed up a late extra point to attempt a 2-point conversion. Mostly, we were just victims of variance; our top two teams saw just 3 field goal attempts against 8 touchdowns, and our kickers only converted 66% of the attempts they got. Loop finished tied for 20th, but like Prater, better days are ahead.

Brandon McManus (1 FG on 2 Attempts, 1 XP, 4 points)

Green Bay's scorching start to the season came to a screeching halt against the Browns and McManus had the game-winning field goal blocked, leading to a terrible finish-- 23rd out of 32 kickers in Week 3.

Parker Romo (0 FGs on 2 attempts, 0 XPs, 0 points)

Neither of Romo's attempts was a chip shot (49 and 55 yards), but after the franchise had grown accustomed to Younghoe Koo making long kicks, missing both isn't a good look. Romo hasn't had the job for long, and he might not have it for much longer if he misses a few more kicks. His 0 points give us our first shutout of the season and rank last among all kickers. 

Jason Myers (3 FGs on 3 attempts, 5 XPs, 14 points)

Our lone hit of the week comes too little, too late; I suspect few readers needed to go this far down the list to find an available kicker. If you happened to be one of them, congratulations; Myers converted from 56, 46, and 37, and the Seahawks poured it on against the Saints. His 14 points ranked 2nd for the week.

Kicker Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 15 weekly recommendations. Those 15 kickers have averaged 8.07 points. Our top three weekly picks average 8.56 points-- compared to a long-run average of 7.67. That would currently rank 9th at the position, but rankings aren't too meaningful on such small samples. (Last year, 8.57 points would have ranked 4th.) We've cooled a little after a down week, but are still on pace for a very strong season.

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 4 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.**