Who Should I Start? Dustin Hopkins or Wil Lutz

Tuesday, August 26, 3:18 PM

The Cleveland Brown released kicker Dustin Hopkin on Tuesday, according to Adam Schefter of ESPN. It appears that Andre Szmyt will open the 2025 regular season as the team's placekicker, although the Browns could still bring in more competition before Week 1. Hopkins will be let go after spending the last two seasons kicking for Cleveland, where he went 51-for-63 on his field-goal attempts (81%) and 41-for-46 on his extra-point tries in 31 total games. The final straw for the 34-year-old veteran might have been when he missed one of his two extra-point tries in the preseason finale on Saturday against the Los Angeles Rams. Hopkins entered training camp on shaky ground at the position after going 18-for-27 on his field goals in 16 games a year ago.

Saturday, December 13, 2:47 PM

Denver Broncos kicker Wil Lutz will look to get scoring opportunities against another difficult defensive matchup this week in the Green Bay Packers. The Packers rank sixth-best in points allowed per game at just 19, and Lutz has been great when being called upon to put it through the uprights, but might lack opportunities in Week 15. Lutz has only had one game all season with more than nine points scored in a game, although the outlier game was 16 points with one 50+ yard field goal in Week 11. It won't be easy to bet on Lutz having a boom week against the Packers, and he comes into Week 15 as RotoBaller's 13th-ranked kicker.