Pigs at the Trough: The Kickers Going Way Too Early in Fantasy Drafts
Kickers are supposed to be the easiest position to draft. Wait until the end. Find a guy attached to a good offense. Take the one with a decent matchup. Move on.
Apparently, we’ve decided that’s too simple.
In 2026, fantasy managers are spending increasingly valuable draft capital on two kickers who may be good at their jobs but don’t provide enough fantasy separation from the rest of the position to justify their price. Cameron Dicker is currently being drafted around K3 and pick 150 overall, while Cam Little is going around K5, about pick 170. The problem isn’t that either kicker is bad. The problem is that the fantasy point difference between these kickers and the guys available later is remarkably small.
In other words, we’re paying prime pork prices for bacon that isn’t all that different from what’s sitting in the bargain bin.
Cameron Dicker — The Accuracy Trap
Cameron Dicker is really, really good at kicking footballs. In fact, he’s historically good.
Dicker is currently the most accurate field-goal kicker in NFL history, converting an absurd 93.5% of his career attempts. In 2025, he continued that ridiculous level of accuracy, making 38 of 41 field goals—a 92.7% success rate—and adding 34 extra points. He finished as the No. 4 fantasy kicker for the season.
So why is he being overdrafted? Because fantasy football doesn’t award extra points for being accurate.
Dicker’s 2025 production was good, but it wasn’t particularly dominant. Despite finishing fourth in total fantasy points, he averaged 9.3 fantasy points per game, which ranked only sixth among kickers. That’s an important distinction. Dicker’s fantasy value was driven largely by opportunity, not some massive scoring advantage over the rest of the position.
And that creates a problem when we start looking at his draft price.
Dicker is once again being drafted as one of the first kickers off the board. Current fantasy rankings commonly place him around K2-K5, with RotoBaller ranking him fifth and other analysts putting him even higher.
That’s a lot of confidence in a position where the difference between the top kickers and the middle of the pack is usually measured in points—not dozens of points. Consider what you’re actually betting on when you draft Dicker early.
You’re betting that the Chargers will give him enough field-goal opportunities to remain among the league leaders. You’re betting that their offense will continue to stall in the red zone often enough to produce those opportunities. And you’re betting that his extraordinary accuracy will continue.
The first two variables have almost nothing to do with Dicker’s kicking ability. That’s the kicker problem.
Dicker can go 38-for-41 again and still fail to justify his draft position if the Chargers score more touchdowns instead of settling for field goals. Conversely, a kicker with considerably less name recognition can finish right behind him simply because his offense gives him a few more opportunities.
That’s exactly what happened in 2025. Dicker finished fourth in total fantasy scoring, but his 9.3 points per game ranked sixth. The gap between being a top-five kicker and being an ordinary fantasy starter wasn’t nearly as large as his draft position suggests.
He’s consistently good—but he hasn’t demonstrated the kind of overwhelming positional advantage that would make paying a premium worthwhile. That’s the distinction PigSkinFantasy wants to make.
We’re not saying Cameron Dicker isn’t an excellent kicker. He is.
We’re saying that being the NFL’s most accurate kicker doesn’t make him worth drafting substantially earlier than kickers who can score nearly as many fantasy points.
If Dicker finishes K2 in 2026, nobody will be unhappy with his performance. But if a kicker drafted five rounds later finishes within 10 or 15 fantasy points of him, the manager who drafted Dicker didn’t gain much. They simply spent a valuable pick to avoid a problem that didn’t exist.
There will be plenty of kickers available late. There always are.
Dicker’s accuracy makes him one of the safest kickers in football. It doesn’t make him one of the safest investments in fantasy football.
The pig isn’t bad. The pig is overpriced.
And when somebody else is willing to pay extra for Dicker’s golden foot, PigSkinFantasy will happily let them.Sometimes the best way to win the kicking game is simply not to kick yourself in the draft.
Cam Little — The 68-Yard Trap
Let’s start with the obvious: Cam Little has a tremendous leg.
He owns the NFL record for the longest field goal after drilling a 68-yarder in 2025, and he followed that with a 67-yarder later in the season. He has made 57 of 63 field-goal attempts over his first two seasons and has converted 77 of 78 extra-point attempts.
That’s impressive. But fantasy football isn’t a long-distance kicking contest.
Little finished fifth among kickers in fantasy scoring in 2025, producing 164 FantasyPros fantasy points. He made 30 of 34 field goals and 50 of 51 extra points. His 9.6 fantasy points per game were good—but hardly dominant.
The No. 10 kicker, Harrison Butker, scored 149 points and averaged 8.8 points per game.
That’s a difference of 15 points over an entire season, or less than one fantasy point per game.
And that’s before considering the price. Little is currently being drafted at approximately pick 170, while the current K10, Evan McPherson, is going around pick 222. That’s roughly 50 picks of draft capital for a player whose 2025 production was only 15 fantasy points better than a kicker finishing around K10.
Fifty picks. For 15 points. That’s a pretty expensive pork chop.
There’s certainly a case for Little. Jacksonville’s offense is improving, he’s young, he’s extremely accurate over his first two seasons and his ability to hit 50-plus-yard field goals gives him additional upside in leagues that reward long kicks. CBS even views him as a top-five kicker heading into 2026.
But that’s the point: Little doesn’t have to be bad for this pick to be bad.
He simply has to finish closer to the rest of the kicker pack than his ADP suggests. And the numbers tell us that is entirely possible.