2026 Fantasy Football Draft Strategy: Kicker Rankings & Streaming Strategy

It's no longer taboo to take a kicker before the last few rounds of a fantasy draft, as long as his name is Brandon Aubrey or Ka'imi Fairbairn. The ever-expanding definition of field-goal range has boosted fantasy scoring for the entire position, but gains at the top have been greater than elsewhere because there are more tries of 50-plus yards and fewer chip shots, which puts more weight on the impact of individual skill (and/or playing indoors).

Per-Game Kicker Stats (2016-25)

The top kickers not only convert at a higher rate but also tend to be trusted with long-range tries more often. When those guys are also playing indoors, which Aubrey and Fairbairn both do for their home games, it creates a massive gap in the long-distance projection compared to a lesser kicker playing outdoors. Every kicker nowadays is capable of hitting from 58 or 60, but coaches don't want to risk it besides end-of-half situations if they lack an elite kicker and are playing outdoors.

It used to be that overall team strength mattered more than the quality of the kicker for fantasy, though there were some cases where both things lined up and players like Justin Tucker or Harrison Butker stood atop the rankings for years at a time. Even then, the results weren't nearly as valuable as what Aubrey and Fairbairn have provided the past three years.

Tucker, once the king of fantasy kickers, averaged 9.63 points per game (Yahoo standard scoring) over his best three-year stretch in 2016-18. He outscored the average kicker by 1.75 points per game (a 22.3% boost) during that period.

Compare that to Aubrey, who has averaged 10.44 points across three pro seasons, outscoring league average by 2.27 points per game (27.8%). If we look at just last year the gap isn't quite as impressive — other long-distance bombers are emerging around the league, namely Cam Little and Will Reichard — but still, Aubrey provided 2.12 fantasy points per game above league average.

Now, it's not necessarily the league average that should be used as a comparison point for fantasy, which is why I'll do a deeper dive below to put some numbers on how Aubrey and other top kickers stack up against expected results from a weekly streaming approach. I've long favored streaming, and will probably still do it more often than not, but there's now a real argument to put more emphasis on the position and even consider someone like Cameron Dicker or Jason Myers a few rounds before a draft ends.

We'll get into all that in detail below, but first I'll provide my kicker rankings for 2026 fantasy drafts for those who just want the quick-ish version.

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Kicker Rankings 

My rankings for fantasy drafts aren't quite the same as full-season rankings. 

The reason? If we don't draft one of the top 4-5 kickers, there's a good chance we'll end up streaming the position, or else we'll end up dropping the guy we drafted during his bye week. This is especially true when we're one of the last in our league to draft a kicker.

Once the top kickers are gone, September schedule becomes a huge part of the equation. This year, Baltimore's Tyler Loop and Kansas City's Harrison Butker are major schedule beneficiaries in my ranks. They wouldn't necessarily be draft targets if we looked at last year's scoring or this year's projections, but favorable September schedules should allow for good fantasy production for at least a few weeks at a last-round price.

Anyway, here's the order I'm using for my own drafts:

1. Brandon Aubrey (schedule +)  — Tier 1
2. Cameron Dicker (schedule ++)   — T2
3. Ka'imi Fairbairn (schedule -)  — T2 
4. Jason Myers  — T2
5. Cam Little  — T3
6. Will Reichard  — T3 
7. Jake Bates — T3 
8. Harrison Mevis — T3 
9. Tyler Loop (schedule ++) — T4
10. Harrison Butker (schedule +) — T4
11. Chris Boswell — T4
12. Chase McLaughlin  — T4
13. Wil Lutz  — T5  
14. Eddy Pineiro  — T5
15. Daniel Carlson (competing with Charlie Smyth)  — T5
16. Cairo Santos  — T5
17. Nick Folk  — T5
18. Evan McPherson  — T5
19. Trey Smack  — T5
20. Spencer Shrader or Blake Grupe  — T5

• Ka'imi Fairbairn has outproduced Dicker and again is in a good situation to rack up volume for Houston, but Dicker has a far more favorable schedule during the fantasy playoffs (and also in September). We'll touch on that more below in the schedule/weather/dome section.
• Cam Little and Will Reichard might be the best real-life kickers after Aubrey and Fairbairn.
  • Little and Reichard also seem to have earned the trust of their coaches to try long kicks outside of desperation situations. That's huge these days. Every kicker can make a 58- or 60-yarder now, but many of them aren't trusted to try it outside of end-of-half situations. The teams with elite kickers have proven increasingly willing to attempt those kicks in neutral situations, especially when playing indoors.

3 Recommended Strategies

I've spent more time than anyone should on 2026 kicker strategy. My goal here is to explain all of that and walk through various options, but I have settled on one of three paths for my own fantasy teams:

• Path 1: Draft Brandon Aubrey or Cameron Dicker
• Path 2: Stream kickers week-to-week. 
  • For Week 1, sensible targets include DET's Jake Bates, BAL's Tyler Loop, KC's Harrison Butker, PIT's Chris Boswell & TB's Chase McLaughlin.
• Path 3: Hope that Cam Little or Will Reichard becomes the next Aubrey.

Last year, Reichard was so good that his misses inspired discussions on the laws of physics. He plays his home games indoors and has gone 19-of-24 from 50+ yards through two seasons.

Little, meanwhile, averaged 11.5 fantasy points per game after a Week 8 bye, averaging 2.0 FGs and 3.6 PATs per game without a single miss (though he did then miss a kick in the playoffs). Little also holds the record for the two longest field goals (68, 67) in league history, with a 70-yarder in the preseason to boot.

I'm not saying Little or Reichard are worth paying any kind of serious price to obtain, but they're worthy selections in the final or penultimate round of a draft, especially for anyone who missed out on Aubrey/Dicker and doesn't want to invest time or energy into weekly streaming.

The Aubrey Effect

We've established that Aubrey has outscored league average by more than two fantasy points per game in each of his three pro seasons. Of course, it's not so hard to outscore the league average in fantasy, even if we wait until the end of our draft and/or stream from week to week.

By looking at betting lines and weather/dome conditions, we can pick our spots and avoid the bad plays that drag down overall scoring totals. To evaluate what Aubrey yields in comparison to a well-executed streaming approach, I looked at kicker scoring through the lens of increasingly restrictive buckets, e.g., looking at scoring averages the past 2-3 years for kickers whose teams were betting favorites in games with over/unders of 45+.

Quick aside: Of all the different buckets/criteria I tested, nothing performed better than picking betting favorites in dome/retractable-roof games. This was true even for games with low over/unders by dome standards. And true with Aubrey/Fairbairn removed from the data. The only bucket of potential streamers that performed similarly well was a very small one: favorites in games with over/unders of 48+.

We then have to remove Aubrey from the numbers, and arguably Fairbairn and Dicker as well, because they've largely been on rosters throughout this time, not available as streaming options. The numbers are noisy no matter the exact approach, but I did find similar results with most methods and ultimately feel comfortable with an estimate of 9.0 fantasy points per week (as the reasonable expectation for streaming under Yahoo standard scoring). 

Aubrey, remember, has scored right around 10.45 points per game in each of his three years.

I put my methodology to the test by looking at my own Yahoo leagues from 2023-25. I streamed my kickers each year, in competitive leagues with a buy-in of either $250 or $400. The results? Right around 9.0 fantasy points per game, giving up about a point and a half per week to anyone who started Aubrey all year. (Please ignore the 'Dan Bailey' reference... for some reason I can't stop mixing up his name with Aubrey's.)

I do think the rest of the league is closing the gap on Aubrey, at least slightly, and he'll inevitably have a down year at some point or another. On the other hand, his scoring feels far more stable than Tucker's or Butker's ever did, in part because he kept it up in 2024 when Dak Prescott missed extended time.

With Aubrey, we aren't just getting a massive leg and pinpoint accuracy. We're also getting home games in a dome, for a team that consistently ranks near the top of the league for pace and play volume. He'll kick fewer PATs if the Dallas offense disappoints, but he might make up for it with more 58-yard boomers.

I trend cautious when it comes to projections, so I prefer treating Aubrey as an advantage of closer to 1.2 points per week, not the full 1.5 discussed above.

How Early is Too Early?

The boring answer here is that it's different in every league. Under standard scoring, the point gaps between players drastically shrink at RB/WR/TE, making QBs, Ks and DSTs relatively more powerful. 

The 1.5-point gap that we've discussed in relation to Aubrey's value is larger than the gap between Chris Olave and Alec Pierce in per-game standard scoring last year. Or, it's about equal to the gap between Chase Brown and Jaylen Warren. Or the gap between Sam LaPorta and Zach Ertz. Basically, 1.5 points in standard scoring matters a lot more than most people think. Even our conservative estimate of 1.2 points per week is a lot.

If there's no PPR component and nothing to make up for it (e.g. point per first down), we can make a strong argument for Aubrey as a top-100 pick. I'm not sure if that means low 80s or late 90s, but I absolutely won't laugh at anyone who takes him in that range under standard scoring.

Frankly, it's difficult to put an exact number on any of this. If we're looking at Aubrey in the 10th round vs. waiting until the 16th round to stream, it makes sense to not only compare the expected gap between kickers but also the expected gap at other positions we might draft in that range (QB/RB/WR/TE).

The problem, especially at RB and WR, is that we're almost always drafting backups by this point. Oftentimes, those players will only appear in our lineups once or twice, if at all.

If we evaluate things based on median expectation, i.e., 50th percentile-ish outcomes, we could mistakenly make an argument for Aubrey as soon as Round 6 or Round 7.

What we'd be missing is that Aubrey doesn't have any real ceiling compared to RBs or WRs in that range. And once we get to the double-digit rounds, it's almost always the ceiling that we care about with our RB/WR picks, not the median or the floor. Usually those picks are worth close to nothing, but occasionally they'll blow up and be worth a handful of points per week compared to what we otherwise would get in our WR3/RB2/FLEX spot.

How do we compare that to Aubrey, who projects as a safe, small advantage?

There's no clear statistical answer/process, which means we'll need more of a vibes-based approach, considering the needs of each fantasy team and the quirks of each league.

For me, Aubrey generally becomes an option around pick No. 90 in standard scoring, pick No. 120 in half-PPR or pick No. 140 in full PPR. That doesn't mean I'm always taking him there if he's available, but that's the range where I'll consider him when my roster already looks sturdy at the more important positions.    

Adjustments for Different Formats/Settings

PPR vs. Standard

This is the massive one, as discussed above. Last year, the per-game gap between Ka'imi Fairbairn (11.9) and Cameron Dicker (9.3) was larger than the standard-scoring gap between Derrick Henry and Josh Jacobs. And Dicker was one of the best kickers!

Even Fairbairn is highly unlikely to maintain that level of scoring, but we do have reason to believe that he and Aubrey can remain solidly north of 10 points per game, which translates to at least a point per week over the reasonable expectation from streaming or a last-round pick. One point in standard scoring is a lot more valuable than one point in PPR.

Penalties for Misses

For default settings, it seems the fantasy industry is split around 50/50 on penalizing field goals. The good news? This doesn't much matter for fantasy purposes.

Lesser kickers may be more likely to miss from any given distance, but the elite kickers are more likely to be tasked with low-probability tries. It tends to even out, with most kickers projecting for around 5-6 misses. The penalties tend to be just one point per miss anyway, so this isn't a huge factor.

If your league uses larger penalties, it could warrant a small boost for someone like Atlanta's Nick Folk, who gets a tough Week 1 draw at Pittsburgh but should have streaming utility throughout the season. Folk doesn't have a big leg relative to his peers, but he's highly accurate up to 60 yards and plays in a dome.

No Distance Bonuses

Some leagues still award exactly three points for all field goals, with no differentiation between chip shots and 65-yarders. That seems silly, but it is something we need to account for in a huge way for fantasy. 

In most cases, I wouldn't consider a kicker until the final round if the 50+ yarders are only worth three points. As discussed above (and below), it's the long-range stuff that's separating top fantasy kickers from the pack these days.

Schedules & Stadiums

Schedule Considerations

If we draft one of the top kickers (Aubrey/Dicker/Fairbairn/Myers) there's a decent chance we're sticking with him all season, in which case we care about Weeks 15-17 (fantasy playoffs) more than the early or middle parts of the campaign.

• My concern with Fairbairn is that he plays at Philadelphia in Week 16 and at Green Bay in Week 17, drastically lowering his usually excellent projection for long field goals. 
• Dicker, on the other hand, will be playing in LA or Miami all three playoff weeks.
• Aubrey has two home games and one trip to the Rams during the playoffs. Excellent.
• Myers gets road games at Philadelphia (W15) and Carolina (W17) sandwiched around a home game against the Rams. That's not terrible, but Dicker and Aubrey are set up better for the fantasy playoffs.

If we wait until the very end of our draft, or don't take a kicker at all, we'll probably stream throughout the season and have a different guy come playoff time. In this case, what we care about is the schedule at the beginning of the year. Some notes there:

• Baltimore's Tyler Loop will play three of his first five games in domes, including Week 1 at Indianapolis and a potential Week 3 shootout in Dallas. His other two games in that stretch are home dates with New Orleans and Tennessee. 
  • The Ravens are going to score a lot of points early in the season.
• Kansas City's Harrison Butker opens with home games against the Broncos and Colts, followed by trips to Miami and Las Vegas. Look-ahead lines have KC favored by at least a field goal in each game.
  • The Chiefs have a Week 5 bye, but that's fine. Potential streaming targets for Week 5 will include Buffalo's Tyler Bass (at LV), Chicago's Cairo Santos (at ATL) and whoever kicks for Indianapolis (vs. TEN).

The Indoor Impact

Over the past three years, kickers have averaged 9.1 fantasy points in dome/retractable stadiums vs. 8.2 points in outdoor games. (The outdoor score drops to 8.0 for November-January).

If we remove Aubrey and Fairbairn from that data on both sides, the split narrows to 8.7 vs. 8.1, which is more in line with the pre-2023 split. We can see how it's actually impacting the overall data to have these two elite kickers on respectable teams playing a lot of indoor games.

That still shows a big advantage to playing in a controlled environment, with the edge widening to around 0.8 fantasy points per game in November-January (even if we keep Aubrey and Fairbairn removed from the data).

Driving the gap? An average of 0.380 makes from 50+ yards in indoor/retractable games, compared to .285 outdoors (again, not including Aubrey/Fairbairn). 

With kicks of 50+ worth five points in fantasy leagues, that gap equates to nearly a half fantasy point per game. 

On top of that, kickers have been about four percentage points better in the 40-49 range when playing indoors. And offenses tend to be more efficient indoors, which means a larger share of drives enter scoring range. It all adds up, to a lot, at least by kicker standards.

Anyone streaming the position should remember that road games at Arizona, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Detroit and Dallas are particularly ripe. The Texans and Vikings also play indoors, but their strong defenses can complicate the equation.

The Bills & Eagles

Buffalo and Philadelphia have fielded strong teams in recent years, yet their kickers have mostly been terrible for fantasy, with PAT-heavy profiles that just don't add up. Both teams get into scoring range often, but the combination of strong rushing attacks and fourth-down aggressiveness limits chip-shot opportunities for their kickers.

Neither team's kicker is elite, and neither gets much help from his home stadium, so the long-range attempts aren't there to make up for the lack of three-point gimmes.

Not so long ago, mediocre kickers on top teams were often solid fantasy starters, or at least high-level streamers. Nowadays, it's increasingly possible for NFL teams to win double-digit games while ranking near the bottom of the league in kicker points.

I'll still look at team implied totals when streaming kickers throughout the year, but they don't carry as much weight relative to even 3-4 years ago. A top real-life kicker playing indoors can be one of the top fantasy plays of the week even if his team is only projected to score in the low 20s.