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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 12 Results

Jason Sanders (3 FG attempts, 3 FGs, 3 XPs, 12 points)

Finally, our top kicker had the game we'd been waiting for all year. Miami had plenty of scoring drives (six total) and a good mix of touchdowns to field goals (three of each), resulting in 12 points and a 4th-place fantasy finish. As good as the day was, it could have been so much better; Sanders scored all of his points in the first half as Miami pulled its starting quarterback midway through the third quarter and coasted to victory. (As an aside, this is why the model punishes huge underdogs but not huge favorites; both tend to take their kickers out of games, but at least kickers on teams in blowout wins tend to score a bunch of points first.)

Jake Elliott (2 FG attempts, 2 FGs, 4 XPs, 10 points)

After weeks of teasing with potential, Jake Elliott and the Philadelphia Eagles finally had a breakout game. It looked like Elliott was destined for another day of nothing but extra points, but a pair of late field goals dramatically boosted his total. Even with a missed extra point, Elliott scored ten points and finished tied for 6th at the position.

Cameron Dicker (1 FG attempt, 1 FG, 2 XPs, 5 points)

It's hard to hate a team-- especially a team that has struggled so far this season-- for taking fate into their own hands and skipping a game-tying extra point for a potential game-winning 2-point conversion. The Chargers made a bold choice, and they were rewarded with a win. But it's a bit of a bummer for their kicker, who missed out on the extra point as well as the chance to add more in overtime. Dicker's five points ranked 22nd among kickers.

Mike Badgley (2 FG attempts, 1 FG, 2 XPs, 5 points)

The pieces were in place for a solid day. But Badgley missed a 29-yard field goal, and the Lions attempted a 2-point conversion after a touchdown. As a result, Badgley finished just 22nd among kickers in Week 12.

Matt Prater (2 FG attempts, 1 FG, 3 XPs, 6 points)

Prater missed a 49-yard attempt and (like his counterpart) lost an opportunity to add points in overtime after the Chargers went for a game-winning 2-point conversion. His six points ranked 21st among kickers.

Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 60 weekly recommendations. Those 60 kickers have averaged 6.47 points, compared to 8.45 in 2021, 7.39 in 2020, 7.65 in 2019, and 7.43 in 2018. That average would currently rank just 19th at the position (after giving 6 points to every kicker who has had their bye week already). Our top weekly recommendation averages just 5.83 points, and every highlighted kicker with a great matchup averages 6.48, marks that would rank 24th and 19th.

Here are the Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP along with how many points they've scored to date in parentheses: Justin Tucker (105), Tyler Bass (107), Matt Gay (70), Harrison Butker (86), Daniel Carlson (97), Evan McPherson (83), Matt Prater (61), Ryan Succop (90), Brandon McManus (77), Nick Folk (101), Dustin Hopkins (75), and Rodrigo Blankenship (70). (All kickers are credited with 6 additional points for every week they missed)

So far, the Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP average 85.2 points compared to 77.8 from the average of all of our great plays.

(As an aside: after Harrison Butker's Week 8 bye, I noted that it would probably be the last time all season he was available in at least 50% of fantasy leagues, recommending that if yours was among them, you should consider adding him and playing him every week. Since that recommendation, Butker is the #3 fantasy kicker behind Tyler Bass and-- shockingly-- Joey Slye of the Washington Commanders.)

Week 13 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. 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.**

Great Plays