Harrison

Butker

The new deal for Butker includes $17 million in guarantees and makes him the league’s highest paid kicker. The former Panthers castoff has been one of the NFL’s best kickers over his seven seasons with Kansas City, hitting 89 percent of his field goal attempts and 94.5 percent of his extra points. After a down year in 2022, Butker came back strong in 2023 with 33 field goals on 35 attempts. He made all five of his attempts of more than 50 yards after struggling from distance in 2022.

Toub points out that the new kickoff rules could require kickers to be more involved in tackles — something the Chiefs may prefer for Butker to avoid. Toub said the team watched every kickoff in the XFL, which first experimented with this rule, and found that kickers were involved in “at least 25 to 40 percent of the tackles” in the tape they watched. Toub said safety Justin Reid has been viewed as a potential option to replace Butker on kickoffs, but it doesn’t seem like anything is definite at this time. It wouldn’t be surprising to see other teams consider this approach to avoid injuries to their kickers.

Harrison Butker (back) suffered back spasms in practice on Thursday and this news would seem to portend that Butker will not be active. The implied point totals make Wright a streamable Week 18 option if you need a kicker.

Butker was a DNP on Thursday, but got in a limited session on Friday as he dealt with back spasms. Andy Reid said that “there’s a chance” the team would add another kicker to the practice squad as a precaution on Friday. It sounds like Butker is truly questionable. If the Chiefs do sign a practice-squad kicker it will be a forewarning that they’re expecting Butker to miss the game.

Our nation’s kickers are all finally healing up. If Butker was dropped in your league, he makes a good plug-and-play in a matchup with one of the highest over/unders of the week.

Butker will slide right into the top kicker line again if he starts. Today was officially a full practice for Butker. Chiefs/Bills has by far the highest over/under of the week at 53. Butker has missed four games with his ankle injury and practiced on a limited basis on Wednesday.

Butker has been out since suffering the ankle injury in Week 1. The Chiefs initially replaced him with Matt Ammendola, but his stint in Kansas City didn’t last long. He was eventually replaced by Matthew Wright, who is 3-of-4 on his field goal attempts this year. Butker, once healthy, will be a strong fantasy option behind one of the league’s best offenses.

Butker will officially miss his fourth consecutive game after spraining his ankle in the Chiefs’ Week 1 win over the Cardinals. Practice squad kicker Matthew Wright is expected to fill in again after the team released Matt Ammendola in Week 3. Wright went 2-for-2 on field goal attempts and converted all five extra point attempts in a 41-31 win over the Buccaneers last week.

Chiefs special teams coach Dave Toub said “He still has a lot of pain and swelling in that ankle. It’s going to take some time to get him back.” That does not sound like the quote given about a kicker who miraculously recovered to take the practice field on Saturday and played on MNF. Expect Matthew Wright to get another week as Kansas City’s fill-in kicker.

It’s Kansas City’s first practice day of the week in advance of Monday Night Football. Matthew Wright replaced Butker last week and will likely be called on again if Butker remains unable to shake his ankle injury. Butker has not practiced since a limited session last Wednesday.