No position is more unpredictable in fantasy football than that of the kicker. Year after year, there is no lower correlation between preseason drafting and postseason ranking at any position. No position has a lower correlation between its performance one week and its performance the next week. No position has a lower correlation between projected points and actual points.

Additionally, placekicker is the position with the narrowest margin between the best players and the mediocre players as far as fantasy is concerned. After all, most fantasy GMs only carry one kicker at a time, meaning there are a dozen or more starting kickers sitting around on waivers at any given time. Given this, it rarely makes sense to allocate resources to the position. Instead, GMs are best served by rotating through whichever available kicker has the best weekly matchup.

Each week, I'll evaluate the situations each kicker finds themselves in (ignoring the talent of the kicker himself) to help you find perfectly launchable production outside of the waiver wire.

Austin Seibert (4 FGs on 4 attempts, 4 XPs, 16 points)

Last week we saw our top pick's best game since at least 2020. This week we got the second best game; The Commanders outscored the hapless Panthers for most of the game, even without Jayden Daniels, and Seibert scored 16 points, his best mark of the week.

Will Reichard (3 FGs in 3 attempts, 2 XPs, 11 points)

The second great game from our second “Great Play” of the week. Our model got off to a slow start, but the last two weeks have completely reversed that. Reichard scored from 42, 48 and an impressive 57 yards. He also missed a chance for an extra point when the Vikings went within two points late in the 4th quarter trying to build a 3-point lead. (Unfortunately for Minnesota, the conversion failed.) Reichard ranked sixth among fantasy kickers.

Joshua Karty (0 FGs in 1 attempt, 2 XPs, 2 points)

Not only did Karty come up short on the box score, he missed an extra point and hit the post on a 35-yard chip throw; These are the kinds of failures that are particularly concerning for a young kicker's job security. I don't think Karty is at risk in the short term, but I suspect the ice may have become much thinner in the future. For fantasy purposes, his 2 points in Week 7 ranked 26th.

Jason Myers (2 FGs in 2 attempts, 4 XPs, 10 points)

Myers' day included a 59-yarder in the fourth quarter as the Seahawks turned a close game into a loss. It was the second longest kick of his career. His 10 points placed him 8th among kickers.

Anders Carlson (2 FGs in 2 attempts, 0 XPs, 6 points)

Last week, Jake Moody was injured and the 49ers used Matthew Wright as an emergency kicker. This week they replaced Wright with Anders Carlson. As I always say, the model selects teams over kickers, so we will always recommend and evaluate who the team ultimately chooses. (In fact, midweek kicker changes often work to our advantage by giving us access to top offenses whose kickers are typically unavailable.)

On the bright side, Carlson marked a new career start with a 55-yarder in the first quarter. On the negative side, he hit the post on his first extra point attempt and San Francisco scored two points after the next touchdown to make up the lost point. Overall, Carlson finished 13th in a busy week at the position.

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 35 weekly recommendations. These 35 kickers averaged 7.34 points, compared to 7.75 in 2023, 6.82 in 2022, 8.45 in 2021, 7.39 in 2020 and 7.39 in 2019. This average would currently be ranked 14th. Our top 3 picks average 8.48 points, which would rank 7th.

Managers who randomly select from our top three picks each week would have received 59.3 points so far. The top 12 kickers by ADP in the preseason were Justin Tucker (62), Brandon Aubrey (66), Harrison Butker (56), Jake Elliott (38), Ka'imi Fairbairn (63), Younghoe Koo (59), Jake Moody (57). ), Evan McPherson (48), Cameron Dicker (58), Jason Sanders (40), Tyler Bass (55) and Jason Myers (52) (with each kicker receiving 6 points for each game missed to reflect typical historical replacement value ). ).

Our streamers now outperform 9 of the top 12 kickers. On average, drafted kickers scored 54.5 points, about 0.7 points per game less than our streaming recommendations. We're currently in full swing after a big few weeks, so I expect things to ease up a bit in the future… but in the meantime, let's enjoy it while it lasts.

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 receiving waivers in over 50% of leagues based on NFL.com roster percentages are in italics and will be highlighted in next week's column. Also note that these rankings are specific to situations; Teams will occasionally change kickers midweek, but all recommendations apply equally to whichever kicker ends up starting.

Photos provided by Imagn Images