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 4 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 1 attempt, 4 XPs, 7 points)

The Bills/Saints game remained surprisingly close until Buffalo finally pulled away at the end; Prater's 7 points finished right in the middle of the pack, tying for 17th at the position.

Brandon McManus (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 4 XPs, 10 points)

Few kickers had as eventful a week as McManus. His second kick of the day was an extra point, which was blocked and returned for 2 points by the Cowboys. His last two kicks were a game-tying 53-yarder as time expired in regulation and a game-tying 34-yarder as time expired in overtime. Those last two field goals were a significant boon to fantasy managers, and McManus tied for 6th in Week 4.

Joshua Karty (2 FGs on 2 Attempts, 3 XPs, 9 points)

Karty made kicks from 42 and 37 yards and tacked on a trio of extra points to finish the week tied for 9th among kickers.

Tyler Loop (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 2 XPs, 8 points)

The Ravens didn't have a great game against Kansas City, but because half of their scores were field goals, Loop still salvaged a respectable performance. His eight points were enough to tie for 11th place last week.

Eddy Piñeiro (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 1 XP, 7 points)

Piñeiro could have easily had an awful day; both of his field goals were chip shots at the goal line, an area where teams are increasingly going for it on 4th down. He also could have easily had a great day; the team passed up an extra point to go for 2 in the third quarter, which is a bit earlier than is typical, and also had two turnovers in field goal range (an interception and a turnover on downs). Instead, Piñeiro had a fairly average day, finishing tied for 17th.

Kicker Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 20 weekly recommendations. Those 20 kickers have averaged 8.17 points. Our top three weekly picks average 8.58 points-- compared to a long-run average of 7.67. That would currently rank 10th at the position, though rankings are fluid on small samples and many of the kickers ahead of us weren't drafted or started. The top kicker so far is Spencer Shrader with 51 points; Footballguys' preseason ADP data goes 31 kickers deep, and Shrader wasn't among them. Jason Myers, the second-best kicker, was 23rd off the board. Matt Prater, who ties for 4th, wasn't even on a roster when the first game of the season kicked off.

(For context, 8.58 points would have ranked 4th at the end of last season.)

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.

• Brandon Aubrey (38)
• Cameron Dicker (32)
• Jake Bates (35)
• Chris Boswell (28)
• Chase McLaughlin (35)
• Ka'imi Fairbairn (28)
• Harrison Butker (37)
• Jake Elliott (24)
• Cam Little (36)
• Tyler Bass (24)
• Wil Lutz (24)
• Younghoe Koo (20)

The average of our top three freely available kickers each week would score 34.3 points to this point, while the average of the top 12 kickers by preseason ADP would score 30.1, giving us an advantage of over 1 point per game.

Week 5 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.**