Fromal's Kicking Notebook: Harrison Mevis is a fantasy steal and Trey Smack keeps rolling

Harrison Butker made a 69-yard bomb for the Kansas City Chiefs. Cameron Dicker missed another extra point. Joey Slye made another four field goals.

Our goal, as usual, is to tell you not just what happened, but what actually mattered in the world of NFL kicking, just as was the case in last week's notebook debut. So far this offseason, I've ranked every 2026 NFL kicker, broken down the numbers you need to know for the coming campaign and highlighted the NCAA kickers who have the best chance to join the professional ranks. If you want to get next-level nuanced, you can even check out an in-depth discussion of Brandon Aubrey's kicking superpower: a motionless kinetic chain. It's all about furthering the analysis of this increasingly important position.

So, with another week of preseason action in the books, let's get to the real takeaways.

The NFL kicking numbers that mattered in preseason Week 2

Week 2 was a good one for the NFL's kicking class. The league uncharacteristically struggled when it came to making extra points (54-of-59), though one Jason Myers miss came after a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty turned a 33-yard point after into a 48-yarder and another Butker miss came after a 10-yard holding penalty. The collective capability from distance was on full display as 36 kickers combined to go 55-of-65 on their field-goal attempts (84.6 percent) from an average length of 43.4 yards.

My proprietary kick value added (KVA) metric, which looks not just at a kicker's makes and misses but also at the distances from which they kicked and the overall league's level of success from each area during the season in question, shows that the NFL as a whole accumulated 3.83 KVA after checking in with a negative score in Week 1. Again, it was a good week overall, especially because kickers either receiving practice reps behind entrenched starters or actively engaged in battles they could still lose — or, in the case of Laith Marjan, have already lost — dragged the numbers down.

Slye couldn't quite go consecutive weeks atop the pile, but he came close:

The names at the bottom, however, largely struggled to make short kicks:

Myers isn't in any danger of losing his job, but the other four at the bottom of the barrel could be experiencing some sleepless nights. Blake Grupe has dramatically outperformed Spencer Shrader in offseason workouts for the Indianapolis Colts, but the live-action disparity keeps growing in Shrader's favor. Tanner Brown is the unproven UFL import competing against Charlie Smyth for the New Orleans Saints job, and the battle rages on with Daniel Carlson now in the mix. Marjan was never going to beat Chris Boswell for the Pittsburgh Steelers gig, and he's now looking for work. Cade York isn't exactly putting away Jason Sanders in the New York Jets competition.

As for the preseason-long leaders? It's a two-man battle for the pole position right now:

What we learned about NFL kickers in preseason Week 2

But as always, it's the kicks themselves that matter most, not just the raw numbers. So let's dive into the storylines.

Harrison Mevis will contend for the No. 1 spot among fantasy kickers

Maybe it's weird to position Harrison Mevis as a top-tier fantasy kicker coming off a preseason week in which he hit a pair of 26-yard field goals and knocked four extra points through the uprights, but this is about the Los Angeles Rams as much as it's about the Thiccer Kicker. In their 34-0 destruction of the overmatched Saints, they demonstrated exactly why Mevis is likely to get so many opportunities to rack up points.

My overall kicker rankings differ greatly from fantasy kicker rankings because the latter is about opportunity as much as ability. Misses aren't quite as penalized in most scoring systems, and a specialist can easily volume his way into becoming a valuable member of the roster if he plays for the right offense — good enough to get in field-goal range but not good enough to constantly punch the ball over the goal line and turn three-pointers into one-pointers.

The Rams may be an exception. Led by reigning MVP Matthew Stafford, they'll score plenty of touchdowns. But with a dominant defense spearheaded by Myles Garrett, they're also going to create plenty of short fields for an offense that can't realistically score touchdowns on every opportunity.

Last year, Mevis scored 81 fantasy points in leagues with standard kicker scoring, but that came in just nine games after he was elevated to replace the struggling Joshua Karty. Prorate that to a full 17-game season, and you get a tally of 153 points that would have left the rookie behind only Myers, Ka'imi Fairbairn, Brandon Aubrey, Cameron Dicker, Cam Little and Will Reichard.

As of Sunday, Aug. 23, Mevis has a 131.1 average draft position (ADP) in standard ESPN snake drafts, which essentially makes him the K4 behind Aubrey, Dicker and Myers. But the Rams offense is better-positioned to give him opportunities than ever before, it should trust him from longer range during his sophomore season and he's proved deadly accurate — both as a rookie and throughout the 2026 preseason.

My kick charting and the according accuracy metrics had him as the most accurate kicker with at least 15 attempts during the 2025 season (Lucas Havrisik topped him on a sample size of four kicks), missing the horizontal center of the uprights by an estimated average of just 2.4 feet with an average attempt of 39.3 yards. He's been even more accurate during preseason action, logging an estimated horizontal proximity to center (EPC) of 0.7 feet, albeit on a set of incredibly short attempts.

Mevis fires right down the center of the uprights, has power he's yet to flash in the NFL and plays for a team that'll give him a dream setup from an opportunity standpoint. There's a reason I've been targeting him everywhere I don't strike early enough to get Aubrey.

For the record, my personal kicker big board for standard fantasy scoring:

Ryan Fitzgerald, miss and all, is on the rise

Against the Jacksonville Jaguars in his second preseason outing, Ryan Fitzgerald missed wide left on a 31-yarder, but he made up for that misfire with a 61-yard boot that went through the left side of the target area with maybe two or three yards to spare:

That came in addition to a 48-yarder straight down Broadway and a quartet of extra points that continued his stretch of pinpoint preseason precision. That 31-yard mistake notwithstanding, he's earned tremendous accuracy marks in my kick charting.

Fitzgerald, fresh out of FSU, was erratic in 2025. There's no way around that truth, much to the chagrin of Panthers fans who witnessed the league's most significant hash split. From the left hash, Fitzgerald earned a league-worst -8.95 KVA. Only Reichard, Fairbairn and Eddy Pineiro earned more KVA from the right hash (5.82), and you can easily see the improved funneling from the right side in the graphic below.

Not only does that present Fitzgerald with an achievable area for growth, but he's also a significant improvement candidate because he's flashed leg strength not seen in a rookie profile that featured a significant accuracy drop-off from 50-plus yards. Even before that gorgeous 61-yard bomb against the Jags, he'd already cleared his 57-yard high with the Panthers by connecting from 59 back at FSU in 2024 (along with four other makes from 50-plus).

Fitzgerald's 31-yard foible in Jacksonville was pulled left from the middle. His only attempt from the left hash this preseason has resulted in a 37-yarder put down the center. Maybe we're already seeing that improvement in action.

Trey Smack has completely changed the narrative

Trey Smack had every reason to flop during his preseason run with the Green Bay Packers. Pressure has to be associated with his status as the lone drafted kicker in the 2026 rookie class, especially since Green Bay traded up to secure his services. That pressure only got ratcheted up when he struggled to display any sort of consistency during training camp sessions open to media.

But Smack suppressed the noise and headlined last week's notebook after making a 58-yarder (and another one that was negated by a drive-extending penalty) and two 37-yarders. Then he followed it up with a sterling performance in Week 2, making all three PATs and connecting from 38, 43, 51 and 59 through a slight Mile High wind at Empower Field.

Smack didn't just send his latest kicks through the uprights. The football acted like it was homing in on an invisible magnetic target positioned directly between the big yellow poles.

Even though his average kick has come from 46.1 yards, he hasn't even come close to misfiring. That perfection won't last forever — it never does — but the sixth-rounder out of Florida has flipped the narrative on its head and should already have Packers fans dreaming of long-term security at the position.

This rookie might be something special.

Quick kicks

1. Ka'imi Fairbairn remains one of the league's most reliable kickers, capable of maintaining his impressive accuracy from all over the field, but he had a bafflingly bad kickoff in the first quarter that came up short of the landing zone and bounced out of play for a penalty. He's intentionally kicked out of bounds for situational advantages in the past. This was not that.

2. Kansei Matsuzawa doesn't even look confident on his approach to the ball and missed two extra points against the Texans. He's toast in the Raiders' kicker battle with Matt Gay and, in all likelihood, will end up continuing his development in the UFL. Hopefully it won't be the last we see of the Tokyo Toe.

3. Don't worry about Cameron Dicker missing PATs in back-to-back preseason games. He'll be just fine.

4. Dominic Zvada hasn't yet beaten Ben Sauls in the Giants' kicker competition, but he's doing everything he can to build upon his tremendous training camp performances. Though neither was particularly taxing, both of his makes in Week 2 were drilled straight down the middle of the uprights. The hype train can keep leaving the station, even if it's still fueled by practice-field prowess.

5. Shame on the Cowboys for not letting Brandon Aubrey try a halftime buzzer-beater from 65 yards. I get it; he has nothing to prove. But the dude is kicker magic incarnate, and the more long attempts he gets, the better for us all.

6. I don't want to overreact to one preseason game by a grizzled veteran, but Jason Myers officially has me nervous. He missed an extra point, albeit one pushed back 15 yards due to a Seahawks penalty, plus a 44-yarder. His underlying performance also wasn't as stellar as his record-setting volume in 2025 might indicate. That's now three preseason misfires, which is dangerously close to a pattern.

7. Take that, Father Time. Nick Folk may be set to celebrate his 42nd birthday in November, but he's given the Atlanta Falcons early reason for confidence by putting his accuracy and late-career power development on full display. Folk's two made field goals this preseason have come from 50 and 51 yards, and both were near-flawless kicks that cleared the crossbar with plenty of distance to spare.

Kick of the Week: Harrison Butker (but it's not all good)

That, right there, is power.

Sure, he had a bit of help from the wind. But this was a kick essentially at sea level in Tampa Bay, so it's not like Butker was benefitting from altitude effects. He just booted the heck out of the football, sending a 69-yard attempt through the uprights with enough room to spare that it hit the netting beyond the field of play.

Butker has had two mediocre-to-poor seasons in a row for the Kansas City Chiefs and is embarking upon a bit of an approach shift in 2026. He's not swinging for the fences on every attempt, instead understanding that tempo should be prioritized over power. Of course, that's a mentality made far easier by having such a cannon that you can hit kicks that would've been good from 70.

Unfortunately for the Chiefs, the good vibes didn't last for the rest of the game. As has so often been the case for Butker after he drills a big kick, he missed an extra point, albeit one following a 10-yard holding penalty, and misfired from 43 yards on a would-be game-winner.

“He’ll be the first to tell you that’s the one that he’ll remember,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said after the game, per Vahe Gregorian of The Kansas City Star, referring to the 43-yard miskick.

Butker has a big leg and is the deserving recipient of the Kick of the Week. Kansas City faithful might prefer consistency instead.

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