Harrison

Butker

Butker underwent a meniscus trim on his left knee in November, as he was sent to injured reserve. The talented kicker could play as early as Week 15, however, he understandably makes for a slightly less certain K1 than fantasy managers are used to. It would be unsurprising to see him turn in an up-and-down performance in his first game back.

The journeyman kicker made four of his five field goal tries last week in a win against the Raiders and will get at least one more start before Harrison Butker returns from a knee injury that landed him on injured reserve. The Chiefs put K Spencer Shrader on IR this week. Wright is a solid fantasy option with the Chiefs sporting an implied Vegas total of 23.5 points against LA.

NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero was the first on the scene, reporting that Butker is expected to miss 3-4 weeks due to a meniscus injury in his left knee — which is his non-kicking knee. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport later reported that Butker is expected to have surgery to trim his meniscus, which is why the team went ahead and placed him on injured reserve. In a corresponding move, the Chiefs have already signed kicker Spencer Shrader off the Jets practice squad. Shrader is a rookie who went undrafted out of Notre Dame earlier this year. During his five years of college, he converted on 43-of-62 field goals while making 98.7 percent of his extra point attempts. He’ll now be tasked with replacing one of the most reliable kickers in the league.

The new deal for Butker includes $17 million in guarantees and makes him the league’s highest paid kicker. The former Panthers castoff has been one of the NFL’s best kickers over his seven seasons with Kansas City, hitting 89 percent of his field goal attempts and 94.5 percent of his extra points. After a down year in 2022, Butker came back strong in 2023 with 33 field goals on 35 attempts. He made all five of his attempts of more than 50 yards after struggling from distance in 2022.

Toub points out that the new kickoff rules could require kickers to be more involved in tackles — something the Chiefs may prefer for Butker to avoid. Toub said the team watched every kickoff in the XFL, which first experimented with this rule, and found that kickers were involved in “at least 25 to 40 percent of the tackles” in the tape they watched. Toub said safety Justin Reid has been viewed as a potential option to replace Butker on kickoffs, but it doesn’t seem like anything is definite at this time. It wouldn’t be surprising to see other teams consider this approach to avoid injuries to their kickers.

Harrison Butker (back) suffered back spasms in practice on Thursday and this news would seem to portend that Butker will not be active. The implied point totals make Wright a streamable Week 18 option if you need a kicker.

Butker was a DNP on Thursday, but got in a limited session on Friday as he dealt with back spasms. Andy Reid said that “there’s a chance” the team would add another kicker to the practice squad as a precaution on Friday. It sounds like Butker is truly questionable. If the Chiefs do sign a practice-squad kicker it will be a forewarning that they’re expecting Butker to miss the game.

Our nation’s kickers are all finally healing up. If Butker was dropped in your league, he makes a good plug-and-play in a matchup with one of the highest over/unders of the week.

Butker will slide right into the top kicker line again if he starts. Today was officially a full practice for Butker. Chiefs/Bills has by far the highest over/under of the week at 53. Butker has missed four games with his ankle injury and practiced on a limited basis on Wednesday.

Butker has been out since suffering the ankle injury in Week 1. The Chiefs initially replaced him with Matt Ammendola, but his stint in Kansas City didn’t last long. He was eventually replaced by Matthew Wright, who is 3-of-4 on his field goal attempts this year. Butker, once healthy, will be a strong fantasy option behind one of the league’s best offenses.