Brian is right. And for that reason, I think it’s fine if we just cancel games. But somehow, the popular refrain I see online is that “Week 18 is inevitable.” It’s like, “Well, we gotta have all the football. If we don’t have all the football, people might start to think, like, we don’t need any of the football.” Yeah, that’s true—all the less reason to shove it down our throats. It’s called, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” not, “Smother us until we can claim no other masters.” Dude, football is dumb. I’m fine watching a dumb game and playing a silly game that reflects the dumb game. It’s silly and dumb, and adulthood offers so little opportunity to be silly and dumb while also not shirking responsibilities or risking some tangible loss.
Myself, I’ve worked out a nice little routine where I can fuck off most of Sunday and still get all my work done, including—and here’s the jinx of all jinxes—a note every week. I don’t even think in the year I started the notes that I’ve ever written a note every week. It’s a bit like talking about a no-hitter and a lot like talking about it in the third inning.
Football is so dumb that even though there are only four downs, sometimes people forget which down it is. There are games where they’ve mistakenly played a down twice because the officiating crew didn’t change the marker on the sideline, and some of those games were in the past couple years. It happens. So when Tom Brady holds up four fingers and doesn’t leave the field after fourth down, there’s a non-zero chance the officials set the ball down and expect the Bucs’ offense to run one last play. I’m not saying he didn’t forget what down it was. I’m not saying anything nice about Tom Brady ever if he doesn’t win the Bucs a Super Bowl. I’m just saying football is dumb.
And complicated for how dumb it is. The NFL rulebook alone is 95 pages long, and that’s just on-field rules. The collective bargaining agreement between the players and owners is 456 pages long. The rulebook is updated every season, and the CBA is updated every… actually it changes. In the sixties and seventies, they would update it every two or three years. Then it became four, then five, then six, then… Jesus, thirteen?! Between 1993 and 2006, they didn’t update the agreement? No wonder Sam Bradford made more at signing with St. Louis than Kurt Warner made in five years there. Then they updated it in 2011, so we’re back to five years, good, but wait, no, that agreement lasted until early 2020, so we’re back to this bullshit, and the current CBA lasts until 2030.
Does any other good Liberal out there find it unsettling that the NFL suddenly cares if its fans vote? Can we appreciate that if there were a competition for world’s most Conservative sport, the winner would be the one where they only spend eight of the 60 timed minutes actually playing the game? All I’m saying is, I’m skeptical that these NFL Vote commercials are targeted at the people represented in the commercial itself. Something about the commercial has never sat right with me. It could be Deshaun Watson’s part of the commercial getting the metaphorical 60% backwards. It could be that the whole commercial is people sarcastically saying they half-ass their million-dollar jobs, which is a really weird way to motivate anyone.
What else is dumb?
Lamar Jackson having a shitty offensive line is dumb, and his offensive coordinator trying to make him more of a pocket-passer/game-manager is dumb. The best rushing QB in the history of the game somehow being a middling fantasy QB is dumb, especially since it’s directly lost me two games already that his offensive coordinator isn’t doing more of, you know, THE STUFF EVERYONE ADMITTED THEY COULDN’T DEFEND, especially in an offseason where nobody practiced. Dumb.
Point-differential is dumb. Check this out. These are just the 4-1 teams in the league, in order of point-differential.
Ravens +73
Rams +46
Chiefs +39
Browns +7
Bears +5
Bills -3
The Raiders are the only other team with a winning record and a negative differential (-1). Every team in the NFC West has a differential of +10 or better. Every team in the NFC East has a differential of -17 or worse. The Jet’s (dead-last) -86 is 33 points worse than the next worst team, which I wish I could say was the Giants (-52), but sadly it’s Washington (-53). What’s my point? I don’t have one. All this shit is dumb! Aren’t you paying attention?
Dak Prescott breaking leg and dislocating his ankle at the same time, in the midst of an historic passing season, is pretty dumb. And I know I felt pretty dumb thinking Alex Smith was going to do jack-shit in his first action in two years. Smith was horrendous, just check-downs every where. I think he completed nine passes for like 36 yards or some shit. I could look like I clearly did with the differential numbers, but what. Does. It. Matter.
I’m tempted to own all three Rams RBs, which has me feeling pretty dumb and will leave me feeling dumb no matter what. First of all, I think Akers is the dude. It’s why I spent a third-round pick on him. Okay, technically it’s because I hoped Jonathan Taylor would fall and panicked when he didn’t. But I still think right now he’s superior to the other guys in this backfield. I also think Sean McVay doesn’t give a shit about having a starter. I think he’s actually going to be the most annoying about it and specifically give the most opportunity to the guy he thinks the defense is least expecting to get the snaps. I will drive to Sean McVay’s house in the middle of the night and strangle him by his loose mask that he can’t seem to keep on. I swear I will do it if he does the same weak bullshit he’s bee doing. In the three weeks I’ve had Darrell Henderson on my roster, he’s scored 27, 7, and 22. You can just guess the one week I started him. What a dumb dick.
What else is dumb: Oliver’s stack of draft picks turning into a 1-4 (going on 1-5) start. Also, trading first-round picks is dumb. Kennedy’s triple stack of RB beef is dumb, and it had to sour at some point. RB is the most fragile position (besides TE), and it’s also the position most correlated to fantasy success. Dumb. But it’s no surprise, then, that Kennedy’s amazing RBs, who get 25-touch workloads every week, have each suffered at least some minor injury. Dalvin Cook is the first to actually miss a game due to injury.
I thought my trade for Keenan Allen was dumb. I really wanted Lockett, but I also needed to create some roster flexibility sooner or later, and I was in the mood to deal. My fear is that Chase Edmonds will take the Cardinals job and become a more valuable asset than Keenan straight-up, which would also mitigate Justin Jefferson’s late-round keeper eligibility (as it relates to the trade). If Edmonds jumps Drake on the depth chart, Evan won’t quite have the advantage Cameron had when he got Kamara as a free agent the year before keepers started, but the value will be comparable. It was mostly a dumb trade because Allen left his last game with back spasms and is on bye now, so it’s a trade for a future which might not exist, all to get me a little wiggle room so I could set my Week 7 lineup despite a bloated roster. By scratching my trade itch, I just made it itch more. I am still very open to dealing most of my RBs and WRs. Evans, Akers, and Robinson are untouchable for now, but everyone else is on the table.
I’m sure there’s a bunch of dumb stuff I could talk about, but honestly I’m just not that into thinking about football. I’m watching it pretty passively this year, just using the time to relax and recharge for busy weeks of remote instruction, which is not difficult but also feels like it never ends. I tend to think about the school day all day even when school and home are separate places. This new frontier does no favors to my work-life balance, especially with Stephanie working at a different school in an administrative role, we never run out of ways to talk about work, and it’s a real struggle for either of us to quit thinking about it. The human brain. Dumb no matter how you slice it.
He had four players score fewer than five points. I had one such player. I got double-digit scores from my DST and each of my IDPs. Evan got a combined 23 points from those four positions, with none of them hitting double digits. Evan’s best two players, Big Ben and Miles Sanders, each outscored my highest player, Gardner Minshew, who was on my bench. Ben and Miles’ 55 combined was just nine fewer points than my entire offense put together. It is the second game where a 30-spot from Lamar would’ve won me the week. 30 might sound like a lot. Lamar scored 30+ in 12 games last year, including the final eight straight. I understand why he’s not scoring like he was last year. There’s just nothing I can do about it. I can’t bench him or trade him, so I’ll just piss and moan, baby!
She is just the sixth team in the league to do so, the first to do it this year. She flirted with the all-time record, but Devin Singletary laid an egg on Tuesday. Oliver was fourth in scoring in Week 5, so this is a bad beat. Two teams won this week without breaking 130. It was the lowest scoring week of the year so far, among our starting lineups, anyway. For all of you making jokes about my jinxes, just drink this in. I have been touting Shelby’s draft every week, and yet she ends the lowest scoring week with the highest score of the season. Hmm. So either the commissioner’s jinx is a myth or Shelby’s team is unjinxable. And in a week where we siblings face off, what kind of person would I be to try to lay the jinx on her now? Anyway, cheer up, Oliver. I don’t have a good reason. It’s just a good idea.
These are the two matchups where no one broke 130. Sean and Corey won, which says more about their luck than anything else. I’m pretty sure Spencer still has the best team out of these four. I don’t need to backup my claims with evidence during the lazy recaps, but I’ll give you this nugget for free: Spencer has Mahomes.
And he would have won if he’d been paying attention. Gesicki and Mattison had enough points to turn the tide, and they’d have been in the lineup on most teams. It’s a shit on Tim, but look, it’s going to take a better effort from all of us to beat Cameron. Cut to Cameron making some self-deprecating comment about how Dak is out and his season is over, but that’s faux, and I won’t allow it. That’s when they want the media to say, “He had a different tone today.” Well, I’m not buying it. Also it was the second week that Cam’s DST and Aaron Donald combined for 40 points and ended up being the difference in his matchup. I’d assume that can’t keep happening, but I’d rather stuff the ballot box just to be safe, so get out there and vote.
These are lazy recaps, so we’ll have to hope these two square off again later this year if we want an update on the historical record, but I’m pretty sure Kennedy’s like 7-1 in the series after this win, and what rules is he streamed the week’s #1 QB. The main takeaway I have is the same. As long as Kennedy has his three stud RBs, he can’t be stopped. These next two weeks will be the byes for the trifecta, so good for you if you get to play Kennedy now. If he survives the byes going even 1-1, he’s in shape to finish the season with the best record. Even Shelby’s Moneyballers don’t have a chance against a team where five players are posting 20 points apiece every week. Coleman’s season is getting weird. The 49ers allowed 43 points to Miami, and Coleman’s offensive weapons outside of Russ and Zeke have been highly unpredictable. He has to just be hoping he can scrounge out another win or two until Ekeler comes back to right the ship.
Shelby (Thielen) over Doak (Akers)
Brian (Taylor) over Oliver (Kittle)
Cam (Hopkins) over Corey (Kupp)
Spencer (Diggs) over Sean (Cunningham)
Kennedy (Robinson) over Evan (OBJ)
Tim (Gesicki) over Coleman (Zeke)
Some notes are dumb. Leave room in your life for dumb stuff,
and don’t be so hard on yourself. We’re only here for a blip.
