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 2 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 Yahoo.com roster data). Here's how last week's top options fared.
Harrison Butker (4 FGs on 5 attempts, 3 XPs, 15 points)
It's not often that our top streaming option of the week finishes as the #1 overall scorer for the week, but we always love when it happens. Butker missed on a 51-yard attempt, but converted from 46 and 28 in regulation and then added two more field goals in overtime (from 31 and 40).
Tyler Bass (0 FGs on 0 attempts, 5 XPs, 5 points)
Our model loves kickers on high-scoring offenses, which sometimes comes back to bite us. The Bills moved the ball with ease against the Lions, which led to six scoring drives. Unfortunately, all six were touchdowns; Bass finished without a field goal attempt and, after missing one of the extra points, with just five points total. This tied for 23rd among kickers last week.
Cairo Santos (1 FG on 2 attempts, 0 XPs, 3 points)
The Chicago Bears are tied for the 4th-highest-scoring offense in the league. Unfortunately for us, they got there by scoring 59 points in Week 1 and just 3 points in Week 2. Big blitzes, bad weather, and a Caleb Williams injury ground Chicago's offense to a halt, and while Santos converted from 50 yards, he had a 23-yard attempt blocked. His 3 points tied for 28th on the week.
Chase McLaughlin (4 FGs on 4 attempts, 1 XP, 13 points)
After back-to-back strong weeks, McLaughlin is the #3 kicker in fantasy for this young season. McLaughlin converted four kicks, including a career-best 59-yarder, but the Buccaneers struggled to reach the end zone and fell in an embarrassing loss to the Browns. With 13 points, McLaughlin tied for the 2nd-best finish of the week.
Trey Smack (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 2 XPs, 8 points)
The Packers weren't expecting much of a fight from the Jets, but they needed a Trey Smack field goal with 3 minutes left just to tie the game and another field goal in overtime to win it. Smack's 8 points tied for 9th in Week 2.
Kicker Results To Date
To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made ten weekly recommendations. Those ten kickers have averaged 9.2 points. Our top three picks averaged 8.67 points— compared to a long-run average of 7.71. That would currently rank 5th at the position, though rankings aren't as meaningful on such small samples. 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.