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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 1 Kicker Results

Week 1 proved to be a target-rich environment for kicker streamers. Here's how our highlighted choices fared:

Jake Bates (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 2 XPs, 8 points)

Bates looked like he was en route to a disappointing day until a game-tying field goal with 17 seconds remaining sent the Lions to overtime. Unfortunately he wasn't able to add any more points from there, but his 8 points still tied him for 15th in Week 1.

Jason Sanders (2 FGs on 3 attempts, 2 XPs, 8 points)

Sanders missed from 42 yards, but redeemed himself with a game-tying field goal late in the 4th and a 52-yard game-winner as time expired. Like Bates, his 8 points finished the week tied for 15th.

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

The quality of the field might have played a factor in Philadelphia passing up field goal attempts of 50 and 51 yards, but Elliott still had plenty of opportunities, finishing in a tie for 8th place with 10 points.

Cairo Santos (3 FGs on 3 attempts, 1 XP, 10 points)

Our model loves recommending kickers on middling offenses that are facing terrible defenses, and the Tennessee Titans were potentially an opponent worth targeting. Unfortunately, the Bears offense looked significantly worse than expected. Fortunately, Chicago's defense and special teams bailed us out, twice giving the Bears possession in Tennessee territory and twice more scoring touchdowns themselves (though the latter touchdown was followed by a 2-point conversion). It was a backdoor cover, but if we don't get extra points for being unlucky, we certainly won't give points back when we're fortunate. Santos' 10 points matched Elliott and tied for 8th overall on the week.

Jason Myers (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 2 XPs, 8 points)

Denver's defense and special teams had Seattle pinned deep the entire first half; they had eight first-half drives, but their average starting field position was inside their own 18, including two drives that started at their own 1-yard line (both of which resulted in safeties). Those two safeties also resulted in an early 2-point conversion attempt for Seattle following the first of their three touchdowns. Eventually, though, they got some breathing room and Myers joined Bates and Sanders with 8 points, tied for 15th among kickers.

Kicker Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made five weekly recommendations. Those five kickers have averaged 8.8 points, compared to 7.75 in 2023, 6.82 in 2022, 8.45 in 2021, 7.39 in 2020, and 7.39 in 2019. That average would currently rank just 15th at the position, but rankings aren't too meaningful on such small samples. (Last year, 8.8 points per game would have translated into a 2nd-place finish.) 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.

Week 2 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. 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.