Bengals star Evan McPherson reigns supreme in FanSided kicker stats before Week 2

The Cincinnati Bengals have one of the best kickers on the planet in Evan McPherson. He has struggled to live up to the hype of his phenomenal, Super Bowl-worthy rookie year, but after a solid 2025 campaign and stupendous preseason, Money Mac is coming up aces of late.

McPherson was straight-up nails in Week 1's 33-27 triumph against the Bucs, converting all four of his field goal attempts and his three PATs. Two of those field goals were from 55 and 58 yards respectively.

After earning AFC Special Teams Player of the Week honors, McPherson is also crushing it in Adam Fromal's in-house FanSided Kicker Rankings.

McPherson hits No. 1 in Kick Value Added as preseason momentum keeps roaring

With a Kick Value Added figure of 1.91, Evan McPherson beat out Ravens AFC North rival Tyler Loop (1.62) and Texans sniper Ka'imi Fairbairn (1.12) for the KVA lead in Week 1.

It stands to reason that McPherson will only continue this trajectory. We've seen what he can do as a rookie with an absurd amount of confidence. Last year, he made a career-best 89% of his field goal tries, and to be honest, if he missed in the preseason, never mind all of training camp this year, I totally missed when that was.

I mean, when you look at this 55-yard from McPherson on its own, it's a thing of absolute beauty. It had plenty of height, power, and went in with almost another whole end zone's worth of real estate to spare:

That's a perfect, rising draw down the middle of the fairway. I'm not sure what Bucs head coach Todd Bowles was looking at with that body English. Did he really think it was going to miss? Maybe he had a funny angle from the sideline, but to me, this was a no-doubter about a third of the way home.

Here's some of what our resident kicking guru Fromal had to say about McPherson:

Although McPherson is ranked 12th in FanSided's overarching kicker rankings, he did crack the top five in Fromal's preseason hierarchy. Feels like only a matter of time before Money Mac is considered a consensus top-10 kicker, or perhaps even better.

It was already enough for the Bengals to be a dangerous team in 2026 that Joe Burrow was going to have a much better defense at his disposal.

The fact that McPherson could be this much of a weapon, and virtually guarantee three points as long as Burrow and the Cincinnati offense can cross midfield, may be the difference between a playoff win or two for the Bengals in their quest for their first-ever Super Bowl victory.

In the closed-roof atmosphere of NRG Stadium in Houston, McPherson won't have any elements to deal with (or any brutal Texas heat in the forecast) to keep his roll going against the Texans in Week 2.

Should be quite the duel between McPherson and Fairbairn. Who knows? Sunday's outcome may come down to one of the two making a last-second field goal.

I love the Bengals' chances if Money Mac has to deliver given how hot he's been for quite some time now.

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