After a few down weeks, Rent-a-Kicker turned in its second straight strong performance, with every highlighted kicker finishing tied for 6th or better.
Four of our five kickers last week scored 9 points, but they did it in several ways; one scored a field goal and six extra points, one kicked three field goals, and two, (including Vinatieri), had the more traditional 2 field goals, 3 extra points split. Vinatieri also came up short on a 48-yard field goal that, if he'd converted, would have left him the highest-scoring kicker of the week. Instead, like Badgley, Santos, and Elliott, he finished tied for 6th.
Here's a conundrum: how do you score a touchdown pass for a kicker? On a fake field goal on Sunday, Pittsburgh's kicker tossed a 2-yard score. It's a much rarer occurrence than you might think; Boswell is the first kicker with a touchdown pass since 2011 and just the eighth since the merger, (usually the holder gets the ball and makes the attempt). I've opted to use standard Footballguys' scoring— 1 point per 20 yards passing, 4 points per passing touchdown. The resulting 4.1 fantasy points aren't that much more than Boswell would have gotten had he just kicked the ball in the first place, but they allowed him to finish a tenth of a point ahead of that tie for 6th, and they certainly had a lot more style.
To date, Rent-a-Kicker has made 63 weekly recommendations, (eight in Week 1 before settling on the current five-per-week format). Those 63 kickers have averaged 7.46 fantasy points per game, which would rank 13th at the position among regular starters.