Week 6 of the NFL season featured plenty of kicker action, ranging from Cam Little and Ka'imi Fairbairn's dueling London heroics to Ethan Evans' unexpected crunch-time moment in the spotlight quickly getting overshadowed by Chad Ryland's sixth made field goal of the day. The rookies bounced back in a big way even if Drew Stevens needed to bank in a PAT to keep his ledger clean. Chase McLaughlin and Spencer Shrader continued their Herculean efforts. The list goes on.

Though the league as a whole deserves plenty of credit for a wildly successful kicking week — 60-of-67 on field goals and 50-of-54 on PATs for a staggering 11.71 KVA — we're shifting the focus in this latest edition of my kicking notebook. You'll get some brief insights into Week 6 specifics later on, but we're first highlighting an update to the overall kicker rankings that now have to omit the members of two different organizations. You'll understand why soon enough.

NFL kicker rankings after Week 6

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, helps us make sense of all the 2026 numbers. But it's not going to be the sole barometer for our rankings because so much goes into the results.

Not every miss is equal. Some are on the snap sequence rather than the kicker. Others feature blocks that the kicker couldn't possibly have avoided. Similarly, some makes are more impressive than others — even when they come from the exact same distance (see: conditions, accuracy within the uprights and leverage). And that's saying nothing of the increased importance of the specialists in the dynamic kickoff game. KVA serves as the foundation of the rankings, but we'd be doing you a disservice if that were the only factor considered.

With all that in mind, here's how the league's kicker landscape stacks up after Week 6:

If you're curious why only 30 kickers are present when the NFL features 32 teams, you can thank the Los Angeles Rams and Miami Dolphins.

After Harrison Mevis got his pink slip from L.A. following a miserable start to the campaign (-6.07 KVA to go with league-worst kickoff numbers), Blake Grupe lasted just one field goal and one kickoff before tearing his ACL. The still-unnamed replacement hasn't yet taken the field.

The Dolphins elected to cut Riley Patterson (-4.12 KVA) in favor of Zane Gonzalez after Week 6, but the latter hasn't stepped onto the field in 2026. It's worth noting he did sit at No. 14 in our offseason edition of the rankings, which featured the following explanation: "Zane Gonzalez did everything he could to excel over nine games for the Falcons in 2025. He led the NFL in average make distance (44.95 yards) and would've missed just two kicks had it not been for a trio of blocks that deserve other scapegoats. If he doesn’t win the Dolphins’ high-level kicking competition in training camp, his big leg should earn him another opportunity expediently."

Turns out "expediently" is a synonym for "after six weeks of regular-season action."

For the 30 featured players, you can get more detail on their placements in our full kicker rankings. But for now, we're going to highlight a few of the most notable risers and fallers before diving into some quick observations from Week 6 action.

Spencer Shrader and Chase McLaughlin lead the notable risers in the updated kicker rankings

The post-Week 6 rankings refresh featured plenty of kickers climbing the ladder.

Jason Sanders was unranked in the last edition because the Jets' special teams situation was entirely up in the air, but he's strutted his stuff while healthy and climbed all the way to No. 18. Now sitting one spot lower than Sanders, Jake Elliott has only taken five field-goal attempts, but he's converted all of them with stellar accuracy grades and has begun climbing toward the territory he occupied before the last two struggle-filled seasons. Andre Szmyt had his first missed field-goal attempt of the season against the Ravens this past weekend, but the No. 9 kicker in the rankings immediately bounced back and continued to affirm his status as a rising star with a 37-yard game-winner at the buzzer.

The two most significant leaps, though, come even further up the charts.

Spencer Shrader is the first of the two, climbing 19 spots into the silver-medal position thanks to his unrelenting excellence for the Colts. Lest we forget, Shrader made 13 of his 14 attempts over five appearances in 2025 before tearing his right ACL and MCL, and he's picked up where he left off. By every non-kickoff measure, the 27-year-old has been phenomenal. I waxed poetic about him in last week's notebook, highlighting his clutch success, his accuracy on deep attempts and everything in between, and the story didn't change in Week 6 as he added two more three-pointers to his résumé.

Chase McLaughlin, meanwhile, "only" climbed four spots in the rankings but joined Shrader on the podium. Including his excellent work in the kickoff game, he's actually been the most valuable player at his position in the NFL, per my kicker points over average (KPOA) metric:

McLaughlin's accuracy marks don't scream sustainability quite like Shrader's do (you can see him flirting with the uprights a bit more in the two season cards above), hence his placement one spot lower in the pecking order. But he's drilled plenty of tough kicks from significant yardages and through notable crosswinds, which is enough to establish himself as one of the true elites. He put that skill on display yet again in Week 6, tying up the contest with Pittsburgh on a 53-yarder with just eight seconds remaining in regulation — his fourth successful field goal of the afternoon.

McLaughlin, Shrader and Will Reichard, whose praises I've sung relentlessly in the notebooks, make up the top three in the KVA standings. It's only fitting, given the underlying numbers validating their approaches, that they take the top three spots in the positional rankings, as well.

Eddy Pineiro and Harrison Butker are the most notable fallers in the updated rankings

Where some kickers rise, others have to fall.

Nick Folk, though Falcons fans should still have plenty of confidence in his long-term value, got off to a rough start before stabilizing. Nonetheless, the limited faith in his long-range kicks mandates a drop in the rankings, and he's fallen nine spots to No. 15. Cameron Dicker, Chris Boswell, Cairo Santos, Andy Borregales and a few others have also experienced notable declines, all of which you can read about in the official rankings.

But Eddy Pineiro and Harrison Butker, in part because of the sheer absurdity of their kicking résumés, are the headliners in this section.

In the 49ers' unexpectedly dramatic Week 6 victory over the Commanders, Pineiro did what he's done so many times throughout his roller-coaster career: miss an extra point. This one was a line drive that flirted with the right upright but never truly had a chance, and it became his third missed PAT of the season. More significantly, it was the 18th such misfire of his NFL tenure, which has featured so much success on three-point attempts and inexplicable struggles on what should be the easier, lower-pressure type of conversion.

Only Tom Dempsey has provided less value on PATs in NFL history. And while Joey Slye is also in dangerous territory, that's more expected since the Titans kicker has put together a much more sporadic track record in all areas.

Harrison Butker does not appear in the above graphic, but his extra-point struggles have also led to his continued freefall down the rankings. Whereas Pineiro checks in at No. 22 (down 12 spots from his preseason placement), Butker has fallen from No. 19 to No. 26. He's still got plenty of power in his right leg, which allows him to drill kicks from near midfield with regularity, but he has the infuriating habit of pairing those monster kicks with seemingly careless misses on easier attempts.

After adding to his tally in a Week 6 victory over the disastrous Chargers, the Chiefs kicker now has an even more commanding stranglehold on an ignominious all-time record: the most games with both a make from 50-plus and a missed PAT.

Butker has the leg talent to ascend the rankings, but this is now a years-long search for the consistency that has consistently eluded him.

Kicker takeaways from Week 6

Cam Little's leg strength backfired for the Jaguars: Cam Little continued his London dominance against the Texans, but the booming nature of his right leg actually backfired for the Jaguars. It's hard to complain about a game-tying 60-yarder against a division rival with 1:55 left in regulation, and Little deserves all the credit in the world for adding yet another impressive boot to his résumé. But Jacksonville head coach Liam Coen should never have called his number. Going for it on 4th-and-4 from the Houston 42 would've felt risky, but Jacksonville would've controlled the clock and had a chance at the W. Instead, Little's heroics were followed by the Jaguars' continued struggles to slow a red-hot C.J. Stroud, who had two minutes and a full complement of timeouts to move down the field and set up the inevitable Ka'imi Fairbairn game-winner. Somewhat counterintuitively, Little's excellence compelled his coach into the wrong decision.

Ryan Fitzgerald's missed XPs are at least consistent? Sophomore kicker Ryan Fitzgerald has shown a ton of improvement during his second go-round, which is reflected in his updated placement in my positional rankings. He's thriving in the kickoff game and a perfect 11-of-11 on field goals that have come from an average of 41 yards. But he missed his league-worst fourth extra point Sunday, albeit from 15 yards farther back after a Tommy Tremble taunting penalty, and this one fell right into the established pattern. All four misses have come from the left hash, and three have missed outside right: a doink against the Lions, another pushed outside right in the same game and this latest misfire that never drew in off the right side. (The fourth was blocked.) It may be time for Fitzgerald to reevaluate his aiming point or consider taking PATs from somewhere other than the left hash — the side on which he struggled as a rookie and from which he has taken just two field-goal attempts in 2026.

Bills finally got to see some of what they need from Tyler Bass: In the Week 6 victory over the Raiders, Tyler Bass hit from 28, 38, 44 and 47 yards (granted with sporadic accuracy as he struggled to find the horizontal center of the uprights on the 38- and 47-yarders). That brings his season-long tally of 40-plus kicks to five, highlighted by his 49-yarder against the Rams. It's still not enough given Buffalo's Super Bowl aspirations and the need to have a reliable option on even longer attempts, but at least the Bills were able to take off some of the training wheels without Bass missing a beat. Buffalo should no longer feel extremely uncomfortable about the inevitable need to rely on its kicker at some point in the playoffs, but that's only true because of my inclusion of "extremely."

Trey Smack gets a much-needed bounce-back showing: Trey Smack submitted a disastrous showing in Week 5 with two missed field goals and an extra point gone awry, leading to a putrid -5.29 KVA that remains the single worst game of the 2026 season. Now, both the rookie kicker and the Packers themselves can be relieved that he's bounced back rather than letting his woes spiral. Smack made both of his PATs and hit from 25, 29 and 44 (his most accurate kick of the day, no less) in a Sunday Night Football victory over the Cowboys.

NFL doink counter after Week 6

1. Eddy Pineiro (2)
The 49ers kicker remains the only specialist to record a pair of doinks this season. His most recent came on a PAT gone wrong in Week 3.

2(tie). Cameron Dicker, Wil Lutz, Chad Ryland, Ryan Fitzgerald, Riley Patterson, Andre Szmyt, Matt Gay, Jason Myers (1 apiece)

Jason Myers is the newest member of the one-doink party after his 47-yard attempt against the Broncos on Thursday Night Football never deviated on its path directly from the right hash to the right upright. His outing was otherwise clean, leaving him as one of eight kickers with a single doink to their name in 2026.

NFL Kick of the Week: Ethan Evans makes a clutch PAT

The punter Ethan Evans makes the PAT to give the Rams the lead!

AZvsLAR on FOX/FOX One
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— NFL (@NFL) October 18, 2026

Look, there were better kicks in Week 6. Cam Little hit a game-tying 60-yarder in London. Daniel Carlson and Chris Boswell both made kicks from 58 yards out. Andre Szmyt made another game-winner. So on and so forth. But let's give some love to Rams punter Ethan Evans for his (short-lived) heroics.

Sure, the Cardinals ended up winning on Chad Ryland's sixth field goal of the game, but Evans first received appropriate adulation from his L.A. teammates after he drilled a clutch PAT for his first career point. The Rams had shied away from using him after Blake Grupe tore his ACL on a tackle attempt gone wrong early in the proceedings, electing to go for two — which head coach Sean McVay never likes to do — and eschewing field goals for continued offensive attempts. But they called Evans' number to break a tie with 47 seconds remaining, and he came through on his first extra-point attempt since his collegiate days at Wingate.

He deserves his moment in the sun.