Do NFL Kicker Fantasy Points Fall at 10, 12, or 15+ MPH Wind Through the 2024 NFL Season

If you are deciding between two kickers and one is playing in a genuinely windy game, the wind matters: combined kicker fantasy scoring across both teams drops from 16.0 points per game in below-10-mph conditions to 14.2 at 12+ mph and 13.9 at 15+ mph, and those gaps survive statistical correction. The cleanest breakpoint in the data is 12 mph — that is where both attempts and accuracy separate clearly from calm games.

The study compares NFL regular-season games from 2018 through the 2024 season across three locked wind thresholds — 10, 12, and 15+ mph — against the same control group of games played in below-10-mph wind. The registered 15+ mph contrast contains 101 condition games and 807 control games. All scoring figures are combined kicker fantasy points per game across both teams, so they describe the scoring environment, not any individual kicker.

The headline result is the scoring decline, and it is consistent at every threshold. Combined kicker fantasy points averaged 14.7 in 10+ mph wind games versus 16.0 in calm games, an adjusted change of -1.3 points with a 95% interval from -2.0 to -0.7 and a Holm-adjusted p-value of <0.001. At 12+ mph the adjusted change is -1.8 points (14.2 vs 16.0; 95% interval -2.6 to -1.0; Holm p <0.001). At 15+ mph it is -1.9 points (13.9 vs 16.0; 95% interval -3.0 to -0.9; Holm p 0.003). Holm-adjusted p-values are the study's strictest test — they correct for the fact that nine threshold-outcome comparisons were made at once — so these scoring results hold up under the most conservative reading.

Where does the scoring go? Two places, and the threshold ladder tells the story. Field-goal attempts fall gradually as wind rises: -0.23 attempts at 10+ mph (3.65 vs 3.87; 95% interval -0.43 to -0.02; Holm p 0.095), -0.33 at 12+ mph (3.54 vs 3.87; 95% interval -0.57 to -0.09; Holm p 0.040), and -0.41 at 15+ mph (3.44 vs 3.87; 95% interval -0.74 to -0.07; Holm p 0.065). Accuracy, meanwhile, does not decline in a straight line. It drops hardest at 12+ mph — 79.6% versus 84.7% in calm games, an adjusted change of -4.9 percentage points (95% interval -8.1 to -1.7; Holm p 0.017) — but at 15+ mph the estimate is -2.7 points with an interval that spans zero (-7.3 to +2.0; Holm p 0.256). That 15 mph accuracy result is a null finding: with only 100 games where accuracy is defined, the data cannot distinguish a real drop from no drop at all.

Put together, the deterioration is gradual in attempts but the clearest usable breakpoint for fantasy purposes is 12 mph. That is the threshold where both volume and accuracy separate from calm games after multiplicity correction, and where the scoring gap is largest relative to its uncertainty. The 10 mph threshold shows a real scoring drop, but its attempts and accuracy changes sit just above the corrected significance line (Holm p 0.095 for both), so treat 10 mph as suggestive and 12 mph as the level where the evidence firms up.

Two boundaries on what this means. First, these are retrospective associations from observed game-window conditions — they do not establish that wind causes the decline, and they do not prove that a pregame wind forecast improves fantasy projections. Windy games may differ from calm games in other ways the controls (week and season fixed effects, air temperature, and average field-goal distance for the accuracy model) do not capture. Second, the weather data run through the 2024 season, so the estimates stop there. What the study does support is that, historically, kickers in games played at 12 mph wind or above have scored materially less than kickers in calm games — a fact worth weighing when a genuinely windy matchup is on your radar.