I’ve been made aware of a recent online controversy around kickers in fantasy football leagues, elitism, and luck. As the foremost defender of kickers’ place in our little game, I am morally, professionally, and even legally obliged to respond.
The argument against keeping the kicker spot in your fantasy league has always gone something like this: Kicker opportunity and production are impossible to project. There is no reliable way to identify a kicker who should have plenty of chances to boot the football and score points because the kicker is entirely reliant on the offense — and defense — to which he’s attached.
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This anti-kicker zealotry falls flat with the slightest probing. If you’ve ever plugged a running back into your weekly fantasy roster because the back was playing a poor rush defense and his team had a high implied Vegas total and tended to run the rock with a lead, you followed good process even if or when that running back puts up a handful of fantasy points because things did not go as you expected. Maybe his team fell behind early and had to abandon the run. Maybe his team ended up scoring a bunch of points but never had short touchdown opportunities, or perhaps your running back had a couple goal line chances he couldn’t punch in.
Maybe you used a quarterback in your lineup because he was playing in a matchup that profiled as a shootout. And maybe that QB threw for 300 yards and had his way with the opposing secondary. And maybe his team scored four touchdowns -- three on the ground and one through the air. That’s just a bad run-out. You were right to have played that quarterback, even if the quarterback on your bench scored five or ten more fantasy points.
None of this makes your process bad. These things happen. We make small bets here and there about who is most likely to benefit from positive scoring conditions. Make enough good-process bets and you’ll come out on top more often than not. Until Claude gets smarter, there’s no surefire way to know the future.
Bad results from good process have never, in my many years of podcasting and writing about this game, prompted calls for abolishing quarterback or running back or tight end from fantasy lineups. No one, for whatever reason, has ever mocked the mere idea of a quarterback or running back (or wideout) in a standard fantasy roster. I’ve never heard someone wail on a Sunday night that the QB position simply had to go because their guy ran cold on touchdowns that day. But a kicker misses two of his three field goal tries in a game and you won’t wait long for the fire and pitchforks of a crowd demanding the end of kickers in fantasy football.
There are real and viable ways to identify good season-long (and weekly) kicker options if you’re willing to open your mind to such a concept (this is where I tell you that I snuck some pro-kicker propaganda into our 2026 Fantasy Football Mock Draft).
The Kicker Process
A reliable kicker almost always plays for a team that produces lots and lots of neutral or positive game script. It makes sense on a basic level: An NFL team that plays from ahead or often finds themselves in close (one-score) games is much more likely to attempt field goals throughout the game. These teams typically won’t forgo field goal tries in the second half as they chase points and try to close a yawning deficit. They’ll take the three and move on.
NFL head coaches — save for a few spreadsheet warriors — absolutely love to take the three and move on.
This naturally raises the question: Which NFL teams are most likely to see plenty of positive and neutral game script in 2026? For a hint, let’s look to this year’s strength of schedule.
This, of course, is not the end-all-be-all of our kicker process. That the Cowboys are stuffed deep in the lower right quadrant doesn’t mean Brandon Aubrey is off limits in fantasy. He’s not. The Jets being in the upper left quadrant shouldn’t have you running to draft whoever is going to kick for New York in 2026 (Jason Sanders or Cade York, it’s hard to say).
Head coaches’ fourth down decision making should also play a factor in how we value kickers in fantasy leagues. What we’re trying to do — put as simply as possible — is maximize kicker opportunity, also known as field goal attempts. Long-distance acumen doesn’t matter, as I once wrote in a study of kicker production somewhere on the internet. Not even accuracy matters as much as plain old kicker opportunity.
We need head coaches, in other words, who don’t have much interest in maximizing points.
Above is a quick look at how teams have handled fourth down decision making over the past three seasons. Some may come as a surprise to you. Others, not so much.
This, like the strength of schedule data above, should not be used to determine which kickers you fade and which kickers you target in your fantasy drafts. There are real downsides, however, to hyper-aggressive decision makers who can take away a couple easy field goal tries in a given game. There’s also upside for a kicker whose head coach is perfectly fine with lining up a field goal on fourth and one from the opponent’s 25 yard line.
Below are my 2026 kicker tiers. I don’t love the idea of ranking kickers because, as I’ve said for a dozen years, it’s almost all about opportunity with the kicker position. Obviously an accurate kicker can and often will make the most of that opportunity-rich situation, but being a deadly accurate kicker isn’t imperative. I know that probably makes your skin crawl. Let it crawl. So it goes.
▶ Tier One Kickers
Ka’imi Fairbairn (HOU)
Houston last year led the NFL with 2.9 field goal tries per game, thanks largely to a frighteningly good defense that kept games close and allowed head coach DeMeco Ryans to continue his stunningly suboptimal fourth down decision making.
It doesn’t hurt that Fairbairn has made 88 percent of his kick2s over his nine years in the NFL. The Texans defense and an improved run game — and maybe some improved play from CJ Stroud — should make Fairbairn an every-week option once again in 2026.
Brandon Aubrey (DAL)
It helps that the Cowboys let Aubrey kick from pretty much anywhere on the field. Dallas is among the few teams that seem to relish the opportunity for their kicker to drill a 70 yarder.
The high-octane, fast-paced Dallas offense has been excellent for Aubrey. He should be a set-it-and-forget guy in 2026. I’m not breaking news here.
Cameron Dicker (LAC)
Jim Harbaugh loves his field goals. Anyone who’s rostered Dicker the kicker over the past couple seasons knows that in their bones. Harbaugh’s Chargers are always among the league leaders in field goal attempts. Last season only four teams averaged more field goals per game.
The Bolts entering the modern offensive age by replacing Greg Roman with Mike McDaniel won’t hurt Dicker’s prospects either. Dicker is very much live as an every-week play.
▶ Tier Two Kickers
Wil Lutz (DEN)
Teams with functional offenses and elite defenses usually generate a good amount of field goal tries. That’s just science. The Broncos fit that model quite well.
With a relatively soft schedule, I like the Broncos — whose offense will be coached by modern offense knower Davis Webb — to once again be among the league leaders in offensive snaps with a lead. Denver last season averaged two field goal tries per game. Lutz had multiple attempts in 13 of 17 regular season games. This is not about the thin air in Denver. It is about a kicker who could see inflated attempts if Bo Nix stays healthy this season.
Cam Little (JAC)
The Jaguars are another team that seem to enjoy their kicker getting a shot at the longest field goal anyone has ever seen. It’s a neat bit and Little — like Aubrey — should continue to benefit from it in 2026.
Jags head coach Liam Coen does seem interest in scoring touchdowns, however. Last year Coen ranked ninth among NFL head coaches in fourth down aggression, and the Jaguars averaged a middling two field goal tries per game. Maybe none of that will matter since the Jags are in the lowly AFC South. Little should be fine for fantasy in 2026.
Harrison Butker (KC)
Patrick Mahomes, even a gimpy version, is a positive game-script generating machine. Add to that head coach Andy Reid’s predilection for field goals in the red zone and you have the formula for a bunch of Butker field goal tries.
Though Butker’s accuracy has dropped off from the heady days of his early Chiefs career, he remains a reliable fantasy producer on a team that rarely trails by more than a score.
Harrison Mevis (LAR)
The so-called Thiccer Kicker, who has remained so this offseason, should function as a high-floor weekly play in fantasy leagues unless head coach Sean McVay gets Dan Campbell-level aggressive on fourth downs.
Mevis last season had multiple field goal tries in seven of his nine games with the Rams. Some natural regression for LA’s machine-like red zone touchdown production in 2026 should lead to more opportunity for the thiccest kicker.
Tyler Loop (BAL)
Loop’s first season as Baltimore’s starter was fine: He made 30 of 34 field goal attempts and missed only two extra points. The Ravens averaged two field goal tries per game. Loop was bad from deep — making one of four kicks from more than 50 yards — but that doesn’t matter.
I’m weirdly confident that the 2026 Ravens offense, coached by first-time OC Declan Doyle, is going to wreck opponents (I chatted with ESPN’s Kevin Clark about Doyle last week). That should generate lots of that good, old-fashioned positive game script we’re seeking. Ditching one of the league’s worst fourth down decision makers (John Harbaugh) should help Loop’s prospects too.
▶ Tier Three Kickers
Chris Boswell (PIT)
Count me as Boz-curious in 2026. I have a sneaking suspicion the Mike McCarthy Steelers will be much more productive offensively than the latter-day Mike Tomlin Steelers. Boswell, who for years reaped the benefits of Tomlin’s prehistoric approach to fourth downs, could now prosper with a pass-first Pittsburgh offense with a pretty easy schedule.
Just be careful about using Boswell — or any cold weather kicker — when ice winds are gusting and various forms of precipitation are falling from the midwestern sky.
Jason Myers (SEA)
I agonized over Myers. He might be a Tier One kicker if the Seahawks experience no drop-off from the 2025 championship season with a new offensive coordinator no one has ever heard of.
But I’m anticipating at least some regression for the Hawks. They ran pure in 2025, leading the NFL in offensive snaps with a lead. In fact, they played nine games in which they never faced a deficit. That created a huge amount of opportunity for Myers, who had multiple field goal tries in 13 of 17 regular season games. Only the Texans had more field goal attempts than Seattle.
Jason, if you’re reading: Please don’t make me look silly by putting you in Tier Three.
Evan McPherson (CIN)
I don’t feel great about putting McPherson in this tier. The Bengals’ soft schedule and the idea of a healthy Joe Burrow season — a loose concept at this point — should lead to at least decent field goal opportunity.
Way back in 2021 McPherson rode a full Burrow season to 2.3 field goal attempts per game, the second highest in the NFL that year.
Jake Bates (DET)
I get that folks love the Bates story. Dude went from an XFL kicker to an NFL starter for one of the league’s best teams. You can’t beat that narrative. Unfortunately kicker narratives don’t feed our families (neither do fantasy points but you get what I’m saying).
Dan Campbell, our analytics king, likes touchdowns. That’s bad for Bates. Last year it led to seven games in which Bates logged one or zero field goal tries. He only had four games with more than two field goal attempts because, again, Campbell is interested in maximizing points and winning games, unlike most NFL coaches.
Go ahead and draft Bates, I guess. Don’t feel obliged to stick with him all season though.
The Other Kickers
Cairo Santos (CHI): The Bears averaged 2.3 field goal tries per game in 2025; only three teams averaged more. Be cautious about using Santos in your fantasy lineup when the Chicago weather turns to post-Halloween Wintry Death. He should be OK here and there though.
Andy Borregales (NE): This one isn’t difficult. The Patriots last year were second in offensive snaps while holding a lead, they ran a fast offense, and they reportedly want to run faster in 2026. That should be good for a bunch of Pats players, including Borregales, who converted 27 of his 34 attempts in 2025.
Will Reichard (MIN): The Vikings somehow ranked in the top half of the NFL in field goal tries last year while managing the most hellish quarterback situation in living memory (besides the Browns, of course). Some Kyler-centric stabilization for Kevin O’Connell’s offense should do wonders for Reichard in 2026. The Vikes ranked inside the top-10 in field goal tries as recently as 2024.
Eddy Pineiro (SF): The journeyman kicker was a nice surprise off the waiver wire in 2025, making 28 of his 29 field goal tries over 14 games for the Niners. Kyle Shanahan’s lack of fourth down aggression should serve Pineiro well once again in 2026.
