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 Kicker Results

Jake Bates (1 FG on 1 attempt, 3 XPs, 6 points)

Thanks to a suffocating defensive performance, the game against the Colts was never in question despite the offense taking it fairly easy with their lowest total since Week 3. Bates scored six points, which tied for 15th among all kickers.

Austin Seibert (2 FGs on 3 attempts, 0 XPs, 6 points)

Seibert has been one of the best fantasy kickers of the season, but he had a nightmare day against the rival Cowboys. He made field goals from 41 and 51 and came up short on a third attempt from 51, which is understandable. But he saw one of his kickoffs returned for a touchdown with 2:49 left to seemingly put the game out of reach, then when Washington mounted an improbable comeback, he missed the potential game-tying kick after a miracle 86-yard Hail Mary with 21 seconds left (his second missed extra point of the day). And while it didn't impact the outcome (and in fact was a minor positive for Washington's chances), Dallas returned the ensuing onsides kick for its second return touchdown of the game's final three minutes. Seibert tied for 15th on the week, and It's the kind of loss that sometimes leaves teams looking for scapegoats.

Spencer Shrader (3 FGs on 3 attempts, 3 XPs, 12 points)

The Chiefs didn't expect to need a walk-off game-winning field goal against the Carolina Panthers, but that's the NFL for you. None of his kicks on the day were especially difficult, but their rookie injury-replacement kicker was up to the task, finishing perfect on his kicks and tied for 6th on the week.

Jason Sanders (2 FGs on 2 attempts, 4 XPs, 10 points)

The Dolphins offense is completely different with Tua Tagovailoa under center, and Sanders is one of the primary beneficiaries. Miami averages 25 points per game in seven games with Tagovailoa vs. just 10 points per game without. For Sanders, that's 8.7 points per game with and 5.5 points per game without. At the former pace over the full season, Sanders would be the #4 fantasy kicker right now. His 10 points in Week 12 ranked 9th at the position.

Jake Elliott (3 FGs on 3 attempts, 4 XPs, 13 points)

Philadelphia gets a (deserved) reputation for a willingness to keep the offense on the field on 4th down at the goal line, which often limits Elliott's chances to pad his totals with chip-shot field goals, but this tendency sometimes gets exaggerated. Two of Elliott's kicks came from the 3- and the 8-yard lines and his 13 points tied for the second-highest mark of the week.

Kicker Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 60 weekly recommendations. Those 60 kickers have averaged 7.83 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 9th at the position. Our top three picks average 8.25 points, which would rank 4th.

Managers selecting randomly from among our top three picks each week would have 99 points so far. The Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP were Justin Tucker (92), Brandon Aubrey (99), Harrison Butker (93), Jake Elliott (86), Ka'imi Fairbairn (111), Younghoe Koo (86), Jake Moody (89), Evan McPherson (83), Cameron Dicker (99), Jason Sanders (89), Tyler Bass (96), and Jason Myers (76) (giving each kicker 6 points for every game missed to account for the typical historical replacement value).

Our streamers continue to match or outscore every kicker except Fairbairn. On average, drafted kickers have scored 7.63 points, about 0.62 points per game less than our streaming recommendations.

A Note on Jake Bates

Last week, I noted that Bates' was about to surpass the 50% rostered mark, which would render him ineligible for Rent-a-Kicker consideration. I noted, however, that readers were free to add him and continue to start him for as long as he remained a great play; as a result, I would continue to count him as "eligible" until the model no longer recommended him (at which point I would add a note here that it was probably time to move on).

He grades as the top recommendation in Week 13, so this is not the time to move on.

A Note on Chris Boswell

I've had several readers ask me about Boswell, who is the #1 fantasy kicker so far this year but who consistently grades out as a Poor Play or Avoid in our weekly recommendations. (Spoilers: he winds up as a "Poor Play" again this week.) I intend to write up a much deeper dive on projecting kickers, how the model works, and why it hasn't been a Boswell fan so far this year. I'll add a link to that explanation in this space once it's live, so feel free to check back later this week if you're interested. I'll share the link again next week for those who missed it.

Week 13 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.