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

Last week, this space was filled with several paragraphs on why I believed the Rams offense was likely to regress in the red zone, leading to Mevis attempting more field goals. Week 15 was a nice start; with 11 points, Mevis tied for the 7th-best kicker of the week.

Eddy Piñeiro (3 FGs on 3 attempts, 4 XPs, 13 points)

In a near-mirror performance to Mevis, the 49ers offense was able to march up and down the field against the Titans, authoring seven scoring drives, with Piñeiro finishing three of them off with field goals. His 13 points tied for 5th on the week.

Cairo Santos (1 FG on 2 attempts, 4 XPs, 7 points)

Pretty much everything went the Bears' way in a 31-3 victory over the Browns, but Santos did hit the upright from 35 yards, denying us a trio of double-digit performances to start the fantasy playoffs. With 7 points, he ranked 16th in the league.

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

The week served an ignominious end to their faint playoff hopes for the Cincinnati Bengals, and McPherson was a victim of that defeat. Cincinnati reached field goal range five times, but passed up a 57-yard attempt to punt early, lost what would have been 46- and 24-yard attempts to interceptions, and passed up 44- and 49-yard attempts to go for it (and fail) on 4th down. If the game had been closer, McPherson would have undoubtedly attempted several of those kicks, but this risk is why we try to avoid big underdogs when possible, as McPherson finished dead last among all kickers.

Younghoe Koo (0 FGs on 2 attempts, 3 XPs, 3 points)

Koo missed a pair of kicks from 52 and 51 yards. Neither was a gimme, but coming into the weekend, Koo had converted 72% of his career attempts from 50+ yards. As a result, he was left with just three points and a 27th-place fantasy finish.

Kicker Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 75 weekly recommendations. Those 75 kickers have averaged 7.51 points. Our top three weekly picks average 7.82 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 (139)
• Cameron Dicker (137)
• Jake Bates (118)
• Chris Boswell (106)
• Chase McLaughlin (111)
• Ka'imi Fairbairn (139)
• Harrison Butker (108)
• Jake Elliott (92)
• Cam Little (114)
• Tyler Bass (90)
• Wil Lutz (100)
• Younghoe Koo (79)

The average of our top three freely available kickers each week would score 117.3 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 111.1 points, trailing our picks by over 0.4 points per game.

Week 16 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.**