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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 7 Results

Taylor Bertolet (0 FG attempts, 0 FGs, 3 XPs, 3 points)

The Chargers' offense remains in that weird zone where we can't really figure out if they're good or not. The team managed three touchdowns and a safety against what had been one of the worse defenses in the league, though they did pass up a 49- and a 20-yard field goal to keep the offense on the field on 4th down. Bertolet's three points were 22nd on the week.

Jason Sanders (3 FG attempts, 3 FGs, 1 XP, 10 points)

The Dolphins are another offense that seems like they should be better than they are. They managed just a single touchdown against Pittsburgh, but three stalled field goal drives saved a solid performance for Sanders, whose ten points ranked 8th among kickers.

Harrison Butker (1 FG attempt, 0 FGs, 6 XPs, 6 points)

Unlike the last two kickers, there's no question about whether Butker's offense is good; the Chiefs offense scored 42 points against what had been arguably the best defense in the NFL. If you were one of the lucky managers who streamed their way into Butker, I'd advise holding him for the rest of the year. If you weren't that fortunate, his bye is this week and you might have another opportunity to grab him now. In the meantime, thanks to "Too Many Touchdowns" syndrome and a missed 39-yard field goal, Butker's 6 points ranked 15th, but "6 touchdown / 1 field goal attempt" days often morph into "3 touchdown / 4 field goal attempt" days in the future. It's usually not wise to hold a kicker through his bye, but the Chiefs' kicker is one of a small handful of players worth making an exception for.

Nick Folk (0 FG attempts, 0 FGs, 2 XPs, 2 points)

The Patriots might be the poster children for parity in the league this year, whipsawing from blowing out the Browns 38-15 (as 2.5-point underdogs) to getting blown out by the Bears 33-14 (as 8.5-point favorites) the very next week. Folk's 2 points ranked 28th in Week 7.

Rodrigo Blankenship (2 FG attempts, 2 FGs, 2 XPs, 8 points)

Finally, a team that performed to expectations! We were on the verge of writing off the Cardinals' offense after recent struggles, but they righted the ship with 42 points against the Saints on Thursday Night Football. Blankenship missed an extra point but still finished with 8 points, good for an 11th-place finish.

Results To Date

To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 35 weekly recommendations. Those 35 kickers have averaged 6.51 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 17th at the position (after giving 6 points to every kicker who has had their bye week already). Our top weekly recommendation averages just 5.57 points, and every highlighted kicker with a great matchup averages 6.38, marks that would rank 26th and 20th.

Here are the Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP along with how many points they've scored to date in parentheses: Justin Tucker (61), Tyler Bass (54), Matt Gay (44), Harrison Butker (45*), Daniel Carlson (67), Evan McPherson (49), Matt Prater (34), Ryan Succop (56), Brandon McManus (50), Nick Folk (47), Dustin Hopkins (45), and Rodrigo Blankenship (46*). (Starred kickers are credited with 6 additional points for every week they missed)

So far, the Top 12 kickers by preseason ADP average 49.8 points compared to 44.6 from the average of all of our great plays, which (despite not having a great week last week) is still the closest we've been in a while. I've spilled a lot of digital ink already talking about how unusual this performance has been from our model and speculating about causes, so I won't get into it again other than to reaffirm that not only do I think the model is still valid and has better days ahead, I continue to manage my own fantasy team according to its recommendations.

Week 8 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.**

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