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 8 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.

Michael Badgley (1 FG on 1 attempt, 5 XPs, 8 points)

If the Colts' offense continues to dominate, Badgley stands to be one of the top beneficiaries. He's "only" the 11th-best fantasy kicker since replacing the injured Spencer Shrader, but this is because of an unsustainable scoring mix; he has attempted just three field goals against 13 extra points over that span, which will regress. (Is the Colts offense possibly just this good? No; in the four weeks before Shrader was injured, he attempted 14 field goals against 12 extra points and was the #1 fantasy kicker. In the long run, even the best offenses kick plenty of field goals.)

For Week 8, Badgley kicked one field goal and five extra points, scoring 8 points and finishing 11th at the position.

Tyler Loop (3 FGs on 3 attempts, 3 XPs, 12 points)

When Rent-a-Kicker published its recommendations last Tuesday, it still looked more likely than not that Lamar Jackson would return to the lineup. He did not, but it didn't matter much; Baltimore scored on six of its eight possessions against the Bears, and Loop tied for the 4th-best fantasy kicker on the week.

Matt Prater (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 4 XPs, 10 points)

Prater missed an extra point, but remains one of the most accurate kickers in the league, even at age 41. His 10 points tied for 8th among kickers.

Parker Romo (1 FG on 1 attempt, 1 XP, 4 points)

In one of the biggest surprises of the week, the Dolphins put their recent woes behind them as they staked a 34-3 lead against the Falcons before a meaningless 4th-quarter score. Often in a blowout, kickers lose potential opportunities as their team keeps the offense on the field, but Atlanta only attempted one 4th-down across midfield, and it was on a drive that ultimately ended in a field goal, anyway. Parker Romo finished with 4 points, which tied for 18th in a week that saw a lot of blowouts.

Evan McPherson (1 FG on 1 attempt, 5 XPs, 8 points)

It's amazing how much difference a decent quarterback can make. The Bengals offense isn't where it would be with Joe Burrow under center, but Joe Flacco has returned them to respectability. McPherson's 8 points tied for 11th place in Week 8.

Kicker Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 40 weekly recommendations. Those 40 kickers have averaged 7.68 points. Our top three weekly picks average 8.21 points (compared to a long-run average of 7.67). That would currently rank 7th 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.

• Brandon Aubrey (74)
• Cameron Dicker (72)
• Jake Bates (57)
• Chris Boswell (65)
• Chase McLaughlin (67)
• Ka'imi Fairbairn (69)
• Harrison Butker (58)
• Jake Elliott (46)
• Cam Little (50)
• Tyler Bass (48)
• Wil Lutz (51)
• Younghoe Koo (44)

The average of our top three freely available kickers each week would score 65.7 points to this point, while the average of the top 12 kickers by preseason ADP would score 58.4, increasing our advantage to around 0.9 points per game.

A Note on Holding Kickers

In past seasons, I have noted that many of the best fantasy kickers in any given year began the season unrostered in fantasy, and therefore, the teams most likely to secure their services were streamers such as ourselves. To that end, I've made recommendations on kickers possibly worth holding for the long term. A few readers have asked why I haven't done that yet this year.

The primary answer is that, when tallying the results of my recommendations, they very slightly underperformed what you would have gotten if you'd simply continued to stream. The second answer is that I have a model for predicting kickers each week. I know how and why it works; I can test and track its predictions. When something goes wrong, I can try to figure out why and whether adjustments are needed. 

For long-term recommendations, there was no objective model; it was essentially just an educated guess about which teams would have top offenses over the rest of the year. In instances where my guess was right, holding the kicker was usually a strong play. In instances where my guess was wrong, you were likely back to streaming after a few mediocre weeks.

With that said, if you like the prospects of having a long-term starter, look for whatever kicker is tied to the best overall offense. Michael Badgley would seem to be the best bet at the moment, but Loop or Prater (and, when he returns, Tyler Bass) might also be good plays.

The nice thing about holding a kicker is you don't have to commit to it all at once; you can break ties among weekly recommendations in favor of the player on the more potent offense, and if you want to keep using that kicker in subsequent weeks, he'll be available to do so.

Week 9 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.**