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 14 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.

Harrison Mevis (1 FG on 1 attempt, 6 XPs, 9 points)

I fielded a lot of questions last week about the Mevis recommendation. Several people pointed out that Mevis was the #19 fantasy kicker since signing, or that the Rams were 31st in the league in field attempts. Since Week 10, the Rams lead the NFL in points scored with 170... but just nine of those have come from field goals, about 5% of the total. For comparison, the #2 scoring offense in that span (Seattle) is gaining 33% of its points from field goals. The #3 offense (Detroit) has 19% of its points from field goals. The #4 offense (Jacksonville) is getting 16% from field goals, while the #5 (Buffalo) is getting 13%.

It's true that top offenses do have a higher percentage of their scoring drives end in touchdowns, but this is usually compensated for by the fact that they... just have more scoring drives overall. As a result, the top fantasy kickers in any given year are dominated by players on the top offenses. In the short run, you occasionally get stretches like the one Mevis is currently on (23 extra points vs. just 3 field goals), but going forward, everyone tends to revert to a more normal scoring mix.

Even among the best offenses in history, 5% of points from field goals is wildly unsustainable. The 2007 Patriots gained nearly 11% of their points on field goals. The 2013 Broncos gained over 12%. The 2025 Rams are awesome, but they're not better than the 2007 Pats or the 2013 Broncos, and they're not going to sustain this pace. Heck, the Rams themselves had attempted 26 extra points to 10 field goals before signing Mevis; if they'd kept that ratio, Mevis would be the #5 fantasy kicker since signing.

I wrote about this specifically in Week 7 of 2020 when Jason Myers had a very similar ratio of 23 extra points to just 2 field goals through six games; over the rest of the season, Myers attempted 22 field goals against 32 extra points and was the #4 fantasy kicker. I fully expect similar regression for Mevis going forward. In the meantime, at least the Rams are scoring enough touchdowns to keep him afloat while we wait; with nine points, Mevis tied for the 9th-best kicker last week.

Wil Lutz (1 FG on 1 attempt, 3 XPs, 6 points)

It was a rough week for streamers; the top three fantasy kickers were the three most-rostered kickers (Aubrey, Dicker, and Bates). Eight kickers scored double digits, and seven of them were rostered in most leagues (the exception was Riley Patterson, who we were skeptical of). We were mostly left sifting through players like Lutz, who kicked three extra points and a chip shot field goal and tied for 19th at the position.

Brandon McManus (0 FGs on 0 attempts, 4 XPs, 4 points)

Another victim of an offense scoring nothing but touchdowns, McManus' four extra points ranked him 24th on the week.

Blake Grupe (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 1 XP, 7 points)

This recommendation was originally for Michael Badgley, but he was surprisingly cut by the Colts despite going 10 of 11 on field goals (and 6 of 7 from 40+) for them. He was replaced by Blake Grupe, who'd been waived by the Saints several weeks prior for much worse placekicking results (18 of 26 overall and 5 of 11 from 40+).

Is Grupe better or worse than Badgley? Honestly, they're both solidly right in that "replaceable middle" range. Is this a case of a team looking for a convenient scapegoat after a frustrating loss? Maybe, but Rent-a-Kicker is ranking situations rather than players, so we don't care who winds up dressing on Sundays or why. With Daniel Jones' achilles injury, it's probably a moot point, anyway; it seems unlikely any Colts kicker will wind up as a strong recommendation for us in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Grupe's 7 points tied for 14th in Week 14.

Evan McPherson (0 FGs on 0 attempts, 4 XPs, 4 points)

It's been a while since we've had to dip down into our "Neutral Plays" to find a fifth recommendation (not since Week 5), but as I said, it was a thin week for streamers. McPherson scored 4 points, which tied for 24th.

Kicker Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 70 weekly recommendations. Those 70 kickers have averaged 7.56 points. Our top three weekly picks average 7.64 points (compared to a long-run average of 7.67). That would currently rank 8th 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 (125)
• Cameron Dicker (127)
• Jake Bates (108)
• Chris Boswell (102)
• Chase McLaughlin (103)
• Ka'imi Fairbairn (123)
• Harrison Butker (101)
• Jake Elliott (85)
• Cam Little (102)
• Tyler Bass (84)
• Wil Lutz (96)
• Younghoe Koo (76)

The average of our top three freely available kickers each week would score 107 points to this point, which matches or exceeds eight of the top twelve kickers by preseason ADP. The average of the top 12 kickers by preseason ADP would score 102.7 points, trailing our picks by over 0.3 points per game.

Week 15 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.**