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 3 Kicker Results

Rent-a-Kicker's projection model is in its seventh season now, and this week was the worst week in its history-- by a not-inconsiderable margin. Our five highlighted kickers from last week averaged 3.4 points; only one other time have we finished below 5 (4.6 points in Week 3 of 2022).

The one silver lining is it was a terrible week for kickers across the board. 20 kickers scored 6 or fewer points and 11 finished with 3 or fewer. For comparison, in Week 1 only 12 kickers scored 6 or fewer and only 3 scored 3 or fewer.

Jake Bates (0 FGs on 0 attempts, 2 XPs, 1 missed XP, 2 points)

We keep waiting for the 2024 Lions offense to resemble the 2023 unit, but it keeps showing flashes before ultimately disappointing. Last year, Detroit ranked 3rd in yards and 5th points. This year, they're 4th in yards but just 16th in points. The yardage gives some hope and Vegas hasn't lost faith yet, but the team needs to start scoring more if we're going to keep trusting them going forward. Thanks to a missed extra point, Bates scored just two points last week, ranking 26th.

Blake Grupe (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 0 XPs, 6 points)

This is what counts as a "good week" for us last week. New Orleans' offense looked mortal for the first time all season, scoring two field goals and a touchdown (which they followed with a two-point conversion) against the Eagles. It wasn't a great showing, but it was enough for six points, which in turn was good enough for a 13th-place finish.

Matt Prater (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 1 XP, 7 points)

The Cardinals offense also came back to earth in Week 3, but Prater still finished as our top pick of the week (and 11th overall). If Arizona can keep performing on offense this year, Prater will be a good option to hold for the season given that his coaches tend to trust him with longer kicks than anyone except Brandon Aubrey. 

Chase McLaughlin (0 FGs on 0 attempts, 1 XP, 1 point)

The Buccaneers' passing attack had been flying high, but Denver grounded them in a hurry. Tampa mustered just 232 yards of offense and scored a single touchdown all day; McLaughlin finished with 1 point, which tied for 29th.

Jake Elliott (0 FGs on 1 attempt, 1 XP, 1 points)

Elliott's miss was from 60 yards; it's not an indictment that he missed it, and in fact it's probably a good sign that the team let him attempt it. The bigger issue is that Philadelphia only scored two touchdowns and attempted a two-point conversion after the latter one; Elliott joined McLaughlin with one point on the week.

Kicker Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 15 weekly recommendations. Those 15 kickers have averaged 6.47 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 23rd at the position. Our top plays average 6.67 points per game, which would rank 12th, while all Great plays average 6.60 points per game, which would rank 21st.

We'll continue to track averages and ranks over time, and next week we'll begin comparing to the Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP.

Week 4 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.