Jeff Wilkins

Wilkins has a maddening pattern in his recent career alternating one year over 100 points and one year under 100 for the last five seasons. In that cycle, he’s due for a sub-100 season, but we don’t buy into that randomness. We think the kicker who’s averaged 118 points during those five seasons is worth a starting spot on fantasy rosters. He gets bonus points for kicking in a dome, hitting a career 20-of-29 from more than 50 and converting 82 percent of his kicks. He’s hit four from beyond 50 in each of his last three seasons.

His association with the pass-centric Rams of recent times has elevated Wilkins’ fantasy value. St. Louis’ touchdown-machine years allowed Wilkins to overcome his mediocre field-goal accuracy. He’s a career 81.5-percent kicker, but one with significant highs and lows, as illustrated by his point from the last four years: 127, 94, 163, and 89. Those are some pretty nasty spikes in production, so don’t think Wilkins is an automatic 100-point kicker because he kicks in a dome. He’s been under 80 percent in six of his eight seasons in St. Louis, but gets added value for his 8-of-9 from beyond 50 yards.

Wilkins put up big numbers last season as the Rams settled for far more field-goal attempts than they had in the past – Wilkins had 42 FGA last season after averaging just 25 FGA in the five years leading up to 2003. With the Rams’ offense potentially on the decline, Wilkins may continue to pick up plenty of FG attempts as his PATs go down slightly. Wilkins, who like Vanderjagt kicks in a dome, made all four from 50-plus in 2003 and is 12-for-19 in his career from that range.

Wilkins is a little overrated as a fantasy commodity - while he was the leading scorer among kickers in 2001, he's only been a top-10 kicker one other time since 1997, and his average rank over the last six seasons is a pedestrian 15th. Bottom line, we've seen him bottom out too many times - three times in that stretch, he's failed to make the top 20 in scoring at the end of the year. He's been oddly injury prone, as if kicking were a hazardous profession. Yes, Wilkins gets to kick indoors, and yes, the Rams offense still has a ton of potential, but it's a mistake to let these things trick you into believing Wilkins is an elite kicker.