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NFL journeyman kicker and current Washington starter Chris Blewitt is the embodiment of perseverance, a testament to the indomitable human spirit.
A kicker literally named “blew it” playing at the highest level of pro football should be the subject of documentaries and biographies. There should be a statue of Chris Blewitt in his hometown. There should be schools named after him. New York City should throw a ticker tape parade for Blewitt, a professional who never let his unfortunate last name erode his dreams of kicking in the NFL.
Just imagine an aspiring novelist named John Badstory, a deejay named Gloria Lamebeats, a used car salesman named Andy Honestman, a baseball player named Mike Whiff, a politician named Joan Sellout. That’s Chris Blewitt‘s company. That’s the hill he had to climb.
And here’s the thing: Blewitt has a pedigree. He didn’t come from nowhere to start for the Football Team. He was one of the top kickers in the country coming out of Virginia’s West Potomac High School in 2012 and was recruited by the University of Pittsburgh, where he became the most productive kicker in school history (it didn’t take much, seeing Blewitt converted a not-so-nice 69 percent of his kicks in four seasons). Hail Pitt and all that.
An undrafted free agent, Blewitt signed with the Bears in 2019 and was promptly released in the offseason. He sat out 2020 and caught on with Washington last month after the team gave up on Dustin Hopkins, who had a case of the yips.
Blewitt -- a living meme before he attempted his first NFL field goal -- generated an outpouring of mean-spirited Twitter jokes when he -- dare I say -- blew one of his two field goal tries in Week 7 against the Packers. He then, ahem, blew two of three attempts against the Broncos in Week 8. Washington head coach Ron Rivera has since committed to Blewitt as the Football Team’s kicker because, you know, why not.
I hope Blewitt does enough to start for Washington over the season’s second half and wins the job in next summer’s training camp and excels in 2022 and earns a longish-term contract and keeps drilling field goals long and short and becomes the heir to Mark Moseley’s throne, his tragically funny last name uttered with reverence among Washington fans, if there are any in the years to come.
Blewitt is an inspiration. Please don’t blow it, Chris.
Week 8 Results
Jake Elliott (PHI) at DET
3/3 field goals
16 fantasy points
Rank: 2nd
Randy Bullock (TEN) at IND
2/2 field goals
12 fantasy points
Rank: t-5th
Evan McPherson (CIN) at NYJ
1/1 field goals
7 fantasy points
Rank: 14th
Now for some all-important kicker notes…
-Dustin Hopkins signed with the Chargers last week and will be their kicker for the remainder of the season, barring a catastrophic cold streak. Hopkins could have some fantasy usefulness on a Chargers team that’s 5.75 field goal attempts under expectation through eight weeks. The Bolts’ analytically driven offense won’t settle for a lot of low-T field goals but Hopkins could stumble into decent opportunity averaging the 11th most offensive yards per game.
-Kicker enthusiasts flocked to my Twitter mentions this weekend after news of Kyler Murray’s ankle injury made the rounds. The good folks wanted to know if Matt Prater’s fantasy value takes a hit if the Cards are without Murray for a game or two. The answer: An emphatic yes. Prater goes from a plug-and-play starter to a desperation waiver add if Murray is out this week against the 49ers. I’d prefer Prater’s Week 9 opposite number, Joey Slye, if Murray is sidelined.
-Evan McPherson isn’t a horrendous process play in Week 9 against the Browns. The Bengals are 2.5 point home favorites in what should be an ugly, slow-paced game. Cleveland has allowed the second fewest field goal tries (9) this year.
-I will come to your house and stop you from playing Brandon McManus this week against Dallas. Don’t test me. I’ll do it. Or I’ll send one of my interns. Either way, you can’t use a kicker on the road with his team an 8.5-point dog. You just can’t.
-Harrison Butker is a mystery with precious few clues. Last year he was close to unusable for fantasy purposes because the lethal Kansas City offense was too good in the red zone. For parts of this season he’s been unusable because the Chiefs struggle to create the kind of positive game script that leads to second half field goal tries. KC is an incredible 8.24 field goal attempts under expectation following Monday night’s struggle against the Giants, while Butker has managed multiple attempts in three of his past four outings. Whether KC will see any neutral or positive script next week against Green Bay is a real question -- one that should determine Butker’s Week 9 viability. I’d prefer the below streamers.
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Plug-and-Play Kickers
Matt Gay (LAR) vs. TEN: Gay is fantasy’s third highest scoring kicker and has been unlucky in the process. The ultra-efficient Rams are now 2.95 field goal attempts under expectation with a 65.79 percent touchdown rate in the red zone (10th best). LA is at home this week, favored by 7.5 points with an implied total of 30.5 points against the Derrick Henry-less Titans.
Tyler Bass (BUF) at JAC: I have vanishingly little doubt the Bills could put up a 70-spot against the Jaguars this week if they wanted/needed to. They likely won’t have to and Josh Allen probably won’t play more than three quarters against Urban Meyer’s band of misfits, who managed to make Geno Smith look like Joe Montana in Week 8. Bass has multiple field goals in five of seven games. Fire him up again in Week 9.
Daniel Carlson (LV) at NYG: The Raiders as of this writing are three-point favorites against the G-people and Carlson has 16 field goal attempts in Vegas’ five 2021 wins. The Giants will be streaming targets for the rest of the season. Snag Carlson if he was dropped during the Raiders’ bye week.
Justin Tucker (BAL) vs. MIN: The Ravens are 5.5-point home favorites in what could (should) be among the week’s highest scoring games. Minnesota is allowing a hefty 2.28 field goal tries per game and Tucker averages 2.4 attempts in Baltimore wins. Don’t overthink this one.
Greg Zuerlein (DAL) vs. DEN: Dallas is an 8.5-point home favorite with Week 9’s second highest implied total. The Broncos, meanwhile, have allowed multiple field goal tries in all four of their losses. Oh, and Dak Prescott may or may not be back.
Nick Folk (NE) vs. CAR: We have a new No. 1 kicker in fantasy football and it’s none other than Nicholas J. Folk VII. Folk now has four 2021 games in which he’s attempted at least three field goals after last week’s four field goal performance against the Chargers. He’s averaging an utterly silly 3.5 attempts in New England wins. The Patriots this week are 3.5 point road favorites against a collapsing Carolina defense. A word of warning (you knew this was coming): New England is a startling 6.21 field goal attempts above expectation. Still, Folk is an indisputably good Week 9 process play against a Carolina team that’s given up 30 fantasy points to kickers over the past three weeks.
Week 9 Streaming Options
Michael Badgley (IND) vs. NYJ (4 percent rostered)
That Badgley, subbing for the injured Rodrigo Blankenship, is rostered in any fantasy league is a stunning revelation from which I might never recover. People really got into the whole disastrous Money Badger thing, I suppose.
Badgley is next in our series Kickers Playing the Jets, a productive if repetitive exercise in which we pick up any living, breathing kicker facing New York. It won’t always work to our satisfaction -- see Evan McPherson underperforming thanks to four quarters of negative game script in Week 8 -- but the process is the process, and the process tells us Badgley is an excellent Week 9 play.
The Colts, as of this writing, are 10.5 point home favorites on Thursday night against a Jets team allowing the second most field goal attempts (19) this season and the most field goal tries per game (2.71). No team is allowing more red zone possessions per game (4.7) than the Jets, whose injury-plagued defense can’t stop the run or the pass. Only Houston and Detroit are allowing more points per game than the Jets through Week 8; Carson Wentz, Michael Pittman, and Jonathan Taylor should have little trouble getting theirs on Thursday.
Badgley has been fine in three games as Indy’s kicker. He’s converted all three of his field goal tries and all 11 of his extra points. The Colts’ field goal attempts have tapered off of late following a glut of Blankenship kicks in the season’s first four weeks. They’re now 2.35 field goal tries over expectation, not nearly as alarming as when that number was above four headed into Week 7.
Only the offensive juggernauts Bills and Rams have a higher implied total than the Colts this week. Badgley has a nice, comfy fantasy floor and a clear path to a ceiling on Thursday night. Join me in the intoxication of rolling out an island game kicker. We are, after all, Island Bois (and Girls).
Jason Sanders (MIA) vs. HOU (23 percent rostered)
The Dolphins stink. The Texans stink. This game stinks. But it features two defenses that probably wouldn’t be good even if they tried -- which they don’t -- so the Houston-Miami game could be fun for fantasy purposes. It’s sick but true.
The Dolphins enter this game as seven-point home favorites (if I may: The NFL should automatically eliminate any team that’s more than a touchdown underdog to Miami for the rest of this season). That means, for better or worse, Sanders fits the process. Though Houston isn’t giving up a ton of field goal opportunity -- 1.75 attempts per game, to be precise -- opponents are running roughshod over the Texans every week. They’re one of two teams allowing more than 30 points per game. If only they could stop an opposing offense in the red zone every once in a while.
Sanders has (mostly) delivered when Miami has generated neutral and positive game script for their big-footed kicker. Sanders had three attempts in the Dolphins’ narrow Week 3 loss to Vegas and another three tries in their gut-wrenching Week 6 loss to Jacksonville. Sanders hasn’t been good this season, making eight of his 12 field goal tries. Thankfully, we don’t care about that. We crave only opportunity.
Miami is 0.62 field goal tries under expectation due to some high yardage games in blowout losses. Sanders is a good fallback option if you can’t nab Badgley off the waiver wire this week.
