There isn’t a better feeling as a football fan than watching your favorite team’s kicker nailing a game-winning field goal as time expires. However, kickers in fantasy football have become a polarizing thing, with more leagues getting rid of them every year. If your fantasy football league still has a kicker spot, read my Guide to Drafting Kickers article.
However, the perfect kicker draft strategy is not to draft one, even if your fantasy league requires you to pick a kicker. Some fantasy platforms will force you to select a kicker before the draft ends. If that is the case, wait until the final round, pick a random kicker, and immediately drop them after the draft.
Fantasy players can do so many better things with that draft pick than selecting a kicker. Even if your league has a starting kicker spot, fantasy players can and should wait until the day before Week 1 to add one to their roster.
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Don’t Draft a Kicker Fantasy Football Strategy
Kickers are a Dime a Dozen
Typically, most of the top-10 kickers score in the same range at the end of the season. Last year, the top five kickers scored an average of 171.8 fantasy points. Chris Boswell and Brandon Aubrey were slight outliers as the top-scoring kickers in 2024, totaling 184 and 178 fantasy points.
Behind them were Ka’imi Fairbairn (168 fantasy points), Cameron Dicker (168), Jason Sanders (161), Chase McLaughlin (160), and Jake Bates (154). Furthermore, the other three top-10 kickers scored between 139 and 149 fantasy points last season.
While Boswell and Aubrey averaged at least 10.5 fantasy points per game last year, three other kickers averaged double-digit fantasy points per outing. Austin Seibert (11.9), Matthew Wright (10.6), and Parker Romo (10.5) each averaged over 10 fantasy points per game. However, the three kickers all played in nine or fewer games, totaling 18 combined.
Meanwhile, nine kickers averaged between 8.1 and 9.9 fantasy points per game last season while playing in every outing. Whether fantasy players stick with one guy for the year or mix and match based on matchups and changes by NFL team, kickers are mostly a dime a dozen.
Kickers are Best as Streamers
Kickers are unpredictable from one week to another. Instead of paying the price to draft a big-name kicker like Brandon Aubrey or Jake Bates, fantasy players should stream the position like they do with defenses. Several factors go into streaming kickers, including the matchup, weather, over/under total, and projected game flow.
Furthermore, some kickers don’t get drafted but become productive for fantasy players, while others who get picked turn into busts every year. Only four kickers drafted in the top 10 last season ended the year as a K1. Brandon Aubrey, Ka’imi Fairbairn, Cameron Dicker, and Tyler Bass. finished in the top 10 after being picked as a top 10 kicker.
Meanwhile, Justin Tucker (K11), Harrison Butker (K20), Jake Elliott (K13), Younghoe Koo (K21), Evan McPherson (K29), and Jake Moody (K22) were drafted as a K1 last season but finished outside the top 10. Furthermore, Chris Boswell was the top-scoring kicker in 2024 but was the K18 in the FantasyPros ADP. More importantly, if fantasy players stream the position, they can wait until Week 1 to add a kicker to their roster.
Kickers Aren’t League Winners
Every fantasy football expert will tell you to shoot for league-winning upside in the final rounds of your draft. However, kickers aren’t league winners. Instead of drafting a kicker, fantasy players could use that last-round draft pick on a high-upside player like a handcuff or competition player. This idea also applies to those with a D/ST spot in their starting lineup.
On the slim chance that Josh Jacobs suffers a torn ACL three days before the start of the regular season, fantasy players would much rather have used a late-round pick on MarShawn Lloyd over any kicker. Furthermore, fantasy players can use the roster spot to lock up a training camp battle instead of having to pick one player or the other.
For example, you can draft Emeka Egbuka and Jalen McMillan in the later rounds of your draft and wait until Week 1 to see which will be the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ No. 3 wide receiver, as the winner of that job could have meaningful fantasy value with Chris Godwin coming off a significant injury.
It is easier to make this draft move when you don’t have a kicker tying up a spot on your roster before Week 1. Yet, the only cost to making that move is remembering to add a Week 1 kicker (and possibly D/ST) to your roster before opening weekend. While this is slightly off-topic, fantasy players can similarly use this strategy throughout the season during the waiver period.
Instead of picking out your kicker for the week off the waiver wire on Tuesday, grab the backup running back to a banged-up starter. While the starter will likely play, there is a chance he could get ruled out on Friday, giving fantasy players a potential top-24 guy for the week that you wouldn’t have on your roster except that you waited to add a kicker until the weekend.
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Mike Fanelli is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @Mike_NFL2.
