It’s Week 9 fantasy football, which means it’s time to look at kicker rankings and top streaming options.

We’re pretty far into the season now, in the heart of the bye weeks with a good bit of data on offenses, at least as far as week-to-week scoring potential goes. It’s true that some teams are likely to get hot (looking at you Kansas City), and some teams are likely to cool after a hot start (I’m sorry, Denver), things are settling out as far as which kickers are going to be the most consistent.

These most consistent, high-scoring guys like Nick Folk and Tyler Bass represent two sides of the coin when it comes to ranking kickers. That is what I’ll dive in to here so that there is a chunk of words on top of the listed rank that I feel most people are going to skip to.

The “We Score A-Lot” Kicker: Tyler Bass and the Buffalo Bills

When an offense moves the ball and scores a lot of points, their kicker generally scores a lot of points too… no kidding, right?

Why this is important to point out is when we’re looking to make an upgrade at kicker, or when we’re looking to stream, we can use the question ‘do I think the [insert team name here] are going to score a lot this week/rest of season?

The Lions, Texans, and New Jersey Jets are, in that order, are allowing the most points per game defensively. Not surprisingly, in terms of giving up points to opposing kickers, the Lions are No. 2, the Jets are No. 1, and the Texans are No. 6. So if you’re looking at your waiver wire, wondering who to tap as a bye week fill-in, target any team facing the dregs of the league defensively.

Secondarily, target kickers who’s teams are projected to score a lot of points (relatively, of course) to the other guys who are sitting there on the waiver wire.

Chase projected points.

The Kicker Anomaly: Nick Folk and the New England Patriots

Nick Folk is 2nd in points per game from the kicker position, and the Patriots are, surprisingly, 10th in points scored per game at 25.8 points per game. I say ‘surprisingly 10th’ because the Pats are only 15th in offensive yards per game, and they’re scoring the 19th-most TDs per game (2.5).

This means that the Patriots are getting an unusually high number of points from their kicker. You can see why this is when you watch the Pats play, they’re executing on a conservative game-plan. This has led to Nick Folk, despite being on a middling team offensively, topping the charts when it comes to kicker points. This is the anomaly, don’t chase the anomaly.

(By the way, Buffalo is 4th in TDs/game).

Week 9 Kicker Rankings