This is the experience of watching the league’s most dynamic quarterback. He lost to the Raiders in OT, despite having at least two solid chances to win the game. The following week, he beat the Chiefs. (We know now, of course, that the Chiefs are the worst team in their division and that their window is closed, there’s no hope, Mahomes is overrated, etc. until they win seven straight and everybody’s pretending they weren’t concerned). He’s rattled off wins against Detroit, Denver, and Indy. The loss to Vegas, especially after losing their best two RBs and a Pro-Bowl corner, spelled doom for the whole season. You see that game, and you think some teams just don’t have the magic spark to make a serious bid for the Super Bowl. But the consecutive wins against KC and Detroit, granted these are trash teams, were Team of Destiny type wins. I still get emotional thinking about Harbaugh calling, “Lamar. Lamar! Do you want to go for this? All right, let’s do it.” And the Tucker field goal, not the distance so much but the bounce off the cross-bar up and over with zero seconds on the clock. And now this Colts’ win—again, trash team—saw Lamar with a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter. I cannot emphasize enough that the Colts don’t have a secondary. The one decent DB they have was injured in the fourth quarter, before the Ravens scored the two TDs. (A neat little nugget: Mark Andrews’ grandmother died this week, he said he was playing this game for her, and he had literally the best game of his career, setting PRs in targets, catches, yards, and fantasy points.)
But get ready to say Lamar Jackson is trash again, and I mean it. The Ravens’ next game is against Brandon Staley and the Chargers. Granted, it was Gus Bradley’s Chargers that originally found the source code for stopping the Lamar offense, but Brandon Staley is a coach of the year candidate because he pays attention to the things that matter. He is the innovator of the “build a roof” defense that is stifling Mahomes. Even if he was just some defensive minded coach, the Chargers have one of the league’s best secondaries. They have Derwin James, who can spy Lamar or stick Mark Andrews like glue, with the latter being the more reasonable thing to do. You don’t need to waste an elite defender spying Lamar; you just need a guy with speed and discipline. The Colts ran a great defense against Lamar. They simply lost key defenders and the defenders they had ran out of gas.
The design is this: you play whatever your base package is. The Colts run a 4-3. From that 4-3, the ends play contain, meaning they rush outside of the tackles and try to stay even with Lamar’s depth in the pocket. If his drop takes him five yards behind the line, the defensive ends don’t want to rush more than five yards. If you draw a straight line from sideline to sideline that passes through Lamar, you want your edge defenders on that line or north of it (i.e., between Lamar and the end zone you’re defending). You’re not trying to prevent Lamar from running. You’re trying to keep him from running in a straight line toward the end zone. So in addition to the edge defenders playing contain, you have the interior linemen pushing straight forward—no stunts, no games. In fact, you don’t even necessarily want to rip or swim to get a free rush at him. You want congestion. You want Lamar surrounded by big bodies, even if they’re his own linemen. So the ideal move is a bull rush that pushes Lamar’s own linemen straight back into his pocket. Step three is the coverage. The Colts plays a ton of zone, so every defender is looking at the QB most of the time. This is why Lamar wasn’t able to get more than one or two breakaway runs. Those were the only times the Colts lost contain, which is impressive. It’s also why Lamar was able to sit back and find an open man on almost every play late in the game, but that’s more about the quality of the defenders and not the scheme.
But even if you play a lot of man defense (which Staley’s Chargers have to this point), then you play man and employ a spy. The Chargers have been an outlier in the league when it comes to the prevalence of 2-Man defense they run. This is when two defenders play deep zone coverage, five defenders man-up the five eligible receivers, and the remaining four players rush the passer. An important point to consider: the Chargers played Dallas, KC, and Vegas already, meaning they have been most incentivized to prevent explosive pass plays—in fact, Staley has been quoted stressing the importance of preventing explosive plays in general, which seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how many defensive coaches focus on stuffing the run or making sure they get the offense to third down as soon as possible. But so the Chargers don’t necessarily identify as a 2-Man defense, especially since that scheme is what led them to allow a thousand rushing yards to Cleveland on Sunday. If the Chargers treat nickel as their base package against the Ravens, they’re going to get bullied off the ball just like they did against Cleveland. Contrary to what we saw the Ravens do against Indy, defenses should want Lamar to throw. Most defenses have enough of secondary to limit Lamar to 65% pass completion (which would be wayyy down from 86% against Indy).
My whole point is, whatever you think Lamar is, he isn’t, and whatever you think he isn’t, he is. Because even though he doesn’t read defenses or call audibles, he does whatever the fuck he wants once he gets the ball, meaning he’s the only one who has any idea he’ll do next.
Non-sequitir with no other home: Big Ben’s body is a house of McRibs that’ll come off the menu any day now.
“Too Burr to Furr” was going to be the title of this note when I thought the Bengals were a team of destiny, before they ultimately lost their game of “no, YOU kick it in” to the Packers this weekend. The conceit of the opening paragraph was going to be nonsense about how Burrow is magic. Then I was going to develop a point about how if you’re going to take a QB first in the draft, he has to have been the truth from the moment he came on the scene. Going back to 2015, that would mean: Jameis in 2015, nobody in 2016, nobody in 2017 (maybe we know now why it wasn’t Watson), nobody in 2018 (obviously it was Lamar, but NFL “culture” wasn’t having it), Kyler in 2019, and Herbert in 2020. This year, it would mean Lawrence first then Fields second. The Jets might actually be good if they drafted Fields. I’m not implying Fields is great. He’s just so much better than Zach Wilson. At minimum, he freezes linebackers in playaction and RPOs. Zach Wilson is a good athlete, but he can be chased down by some DEs, most LBs, and all DBs. Fields can be chased down by some LBs and most DBs. It’s a different game. Trey Lance would still be third, then Wilson fourth (not fourth overall, maybe tenth overall), Mac Jones still falls to the Pats. It’s still an elite QB class. Zach Wilson isn’t bad. He just isn’t ready. He would have been the perfect QB for the Bears’ Andy Dalton plan.
Anyway, going forward, I’m not buying into these bullshit one-year wonders like Burrow, Baker, Trubisky… This year’s bullshit is going to be Matt Corral. Now, the top QB is supposed to be Spencer Rattler. It IS a problem that he just got benched during his team’s historic victory in the Red River Rivalry. We might be looking at another 2016 class, where the answer was nobody. Joey Bosa should have been the top pick in the 2016 draft, just like Quentin Nelson should have been the top pick in 2018, Oregon EDGE Kayvon Thibodeaux should be the top pick in the 2022 draft, followed semi-closely by Notre Dame DB Kyle Hamilton.
Now for the stuff that drives those tasty clicks!
Introducing...
Tim!
You didn’t set a lineup this week, Tim. And you didn’t respond to my text. That hurt my feelings, Tim. I also sent you a trade request because your general indifference makes me think you’ll accept it. And you didn’t accept, Tim, because you… you’re without reason, Tim. I need you take your indifference, Tim, and I need you shove it wayyy up your butthole, Tim. Even when you were playing, you were rock bottom of the league in scoring because you didn’t draft any starting RBs. And to top it all off, your one win came against me in a week where I outscored everyone but you! Tim, according to our precisely crafted metric here in Doak’s brain… YOU SUCK!
Spencer!
After handling the rusty end of Mark Andrews’ greatest game ever, you’re 0-5 now despite basically being 4th in the league in scoring. You don’t have Mahomes propping up the ship anymore. (Is that a thing you can do with a ship? Who cares!) Your new QB was critiqued by the great Ben Solak this week with the words, “His head coach is afraid of him,” as in afraid to let him do anything the least bit risky throwing the ball. You’re relying on 20-point games from James Robinson to get within breathing distance of winning each week. And if that wasn’t sad enough, your second-rounder George Kittle walked out on you. But on the bright side, your kicker is Gay as can be, and you get to drop your bad Juju this week! Too bad you spent that #1 waiver priority on him! *Fart noise* (Spoiler: you will get back to #1 assuming you don’t spend it this week on Devontae Booker or whoever). Spencer, after careful consideration of your status as reigning champ, your scoring acumen, and a pretty sick roster overall, you… only appear to suck when in fact you still kind of rule. Assuming Michael Thomas returns to form for our playoffs, you are a shoe-in to upset whatever higher seed your up against (my guess right now is that you’ll be the 10 upsetting the 6). But dude, 0-5, you fucking suuuuuck.
Evan!
If not for a (relative) explosion this week, you’d have about as many points as Tim! Unacceptable! And it took 57 points from Herbert this week just to make that happen. And you got it against probably the Cardinals’ worst—I mean Shelby’s worst—fantasy week of the year. And you’re losing Saquon Barkley for a few weeks because his ankle Freaky Friday’d a grapefruit. And you chose the wrong Bills’ RB! (For the record, I would have, too. Thanks, though.) But at least Tyler Lockett’s gonna be getting his targets from Geno Smith for the next five weeks! (I won’t bring up the Lavonte thing. It hurts me.) Your team is basically Herbert, Jefferson, and Dawson Knox. Everyone knows she picks Pacey, Evan! Get your head outta your ass! The Javon Hargrave add was nice, but Evan, I’m sorry to say it’s just not enough! YOU SUCK!
Kennedy!
You can’t just not be all-in on the Bengals, man, c’mon. You planted that seed, and you gotta raise that baby till it’s 18 at least. Get rid of this Kirk Cousins nonsense. Kirk Cousins is the prime example of playing for fourth place. In this game, we go for first and we go for last—well, technically we go for first and then, like, sixth? But if we draft Joe Burrow, we play Joe Burrow. Are you not an honorary citizen of the city of Cincinnati? Have you not enjoyed that zoo? Have you not taken in the first few minutes of the film Anomalisa and thought, Jesus, is… is Charlie Kaufman talking about my life here? Would I too be moved by an acapella rendition of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” after meeting a bland girl in a hotel bar and bringing her up to my room for what I thought would be, at-best, time-passing coitus? Kennedy, GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE ROOM THEY’RE ALL KIRK COUSINS MAN FUCKING RUN THIS IS NOT A DREAM EVERYONE IS KIRK COUSINS ALLEN ROBINSON IS KIRK COUSINS YOUR BROTHER IS KIRK COUSINS HOLY FUCK.
Also you suck ;) But Ja’Marr Chase, dude, Ja’Marr Chase is fuckin’ Skyline Chili. Seriously, I am jealous of the Ja’Marr Chase pick. Makes my Javonte Williams look like a bowl of fucking Hormel.
Me!
I don’t suck! My team’s brilliance is unrecognized in their era. The analytics community doesn’t want to draft RBs in the first round, fine, more Najee for me. The NFL doesn’t know how to use Cordarrelle Patterson on offense, fine, more CryptoHenry for me. DK Metcalf is averaging a TD per game, Justin Tucker is setting records, Mark Andrews just had a better fantasy week than Travis Kelce ever had (Kelce’s PR is 33; Andrews had 36). I can’t apparently can’t pick a DL or LB for shit, but at least I’ve got two FSU DBs fucking killing it. But somehow I find myself quite desperate at WR. Keenan Allen is not cutting it, and my next best option might be… Josh Gordon? And I was legitimately considering starting Trey Lance over Matt Stafford this week, only to watch them both be… kinda bad. Stafford was good but not for fantasy. Lance was bad but not for fantasy. They finished three points apart. Maybe I do suck. I don’t know.
Corey!
You don’t have a bench! Outside of Jameis Winston and Marlon Mack, your bench has four players who didn’t play! I get that you’re going through it with injuries, but Peyton Barber backing up Jacobs and Drake? DeVante Parker getting targets from Jacoby Brissett? DJ Chark out for the year? Carlton Davis out for the next month? This is dead weight, my man! Cut the fat, chief! Tell those nanny-neckers to hit the bricks, and quick! I don’t know what I’m saying. I don’t like that you can outscore me each week despite just rolling out whatever’s left of your roster from three weeks ago. As a borderline obsessive in this game, it cuts me deep. Your team doesn’t suck, but watching you waltz your way to 2-3 while I beg the devil for it, well, it chafes my hide, hombre. Chafes it good.
Shelby!
The be-the-Cardinals thing is kind of working! And more importantly, you were able to withstand not having a first-rounder by getting value on most of your picks, while somehow finding the gall to pay that luxury price for TJ Watt. The keys to success here have been Deebo and Hollywood, WRs #5 and #7 respectively through five weeks, who you got in, what, the seventh and 14th rounds? Hell. Yes. In general, this team is balancing on the head of a pin, as you can’t really have confidence in those RBs or with the Titans WRs already banged up. But for now, It Is What It Is and it doesn’t suck!
Coleman!
You don’t have a QB for at least five weeks! And Sam Darnold is even less the answer than Trevor Lawrence was! Trevor Lawrence was at least quality late-keeper material, and I would be shocked if he even makes it through waivers. Somebody has the bench space. But I get the cut. You weren’t playing him against Miami and then holding him through the bye week. I do like stacking QBs and WRs, though. Grabbing either Darnold to pair with DJ Moore has fantasy upside. Pairing Taylor Heinicke with Scary Terry vs. the Chiefs wouldn’t have been bad, either. I’m willing to exercise some patience, but either way, it’s no Russell Wilson. But the QB situation is tenable. There’s always 20 points in free agency. The reason you just hold Trevor for next year is that you’re about to enter a rough patch, and Trevor would have been decent trade-bait to offer in terms of, like, say you’re in a bidding war. You can’t beat a 2nd with a 1st—don’t trade your firsts, people—but you can beat it with a 2nd and Lawrence. Eh, maybe. But still, I’d rather keep Lawrence through the bye than keep pretending Mark Ingram is a thing. Coleman, you are about to have a rough couple weeks, with a bye for Kamara now and Ekeler next week, but you don’t quite suck! (Unless Sam Darnold does.)
Oliver!
Way to choke away a 200-point game in the final 20 minutes of MNF, asshole! But I can’t realistically be mad at this team: three RBs that would start for any of us, five starting WRs; you can’t find that kind of depth as the season goes along. You have to have sold out your season prior for the extra picks to get this stacked. And still, you’re maybe the third best team because you didn’t spend any of those picks on Mahomes or Jackson. You blew it again! Get fuuucked.
Brian!
There’s no such thing as too many RBs! Especially when you can consistently slot one of them on IR. This is what we call good injury luck, similar to what’s happening to the Bucs so far. It’s not about avoiding injuries altogether. It’s about your surviving regular-season injuries that see players return for the postseason stretch. It’s Vita Vea missing basically the whole year only to shred the Packers and Chiefs in the two biggest games at the end. I can’t help but root for you, Brian. You’ve gotten too close too many times. And I can’t root for Cameron or Sean. They’re dirtbags wrapped in inside-out flypaper. Brian, if you care at all about the soul of the league, you need to find your way to the top at the end of this thing.
Sean!
You wrote the title of the note! You started nearly the ugliest lineup possible and shattered the Mortydome scoring record by 15 points! You’re starting backup RBs, a 35-yo WR, and getting jack shit from top-5s at TE and LB, but you’re melting faces! Obviously, glory to Lamar. The Mike Williams thing is gross and I hate it, mostly because it’s turned Keenan Allen into Jarvis Landry. But yeah, there are no holes here. For every injured RB, you have the handcuff. I think ultimately you’re at Lamar’s mercy, but the way these other dudes are playing, maybe not.
Cameron!
Congratulations. You are the 1998 Yankees. Hopefully, you’re the ’07 Pats when it’s all said and done. But for now, you’re the Yankees. You bought your team with Nazi gold, and I’m not gonna let that story stay buried. There’s a Native American cemetery under your team’s practice facility, and the spirits and getting restless. Everyone is talking about Derrick Henry’s pace to obliterate the rushing attempts record, and I’ll just leave it at that. Enjoy your undefeated regular season and your single-season scoring record. Get bent.
Week 6 Predictions (and worst player)
Mountain D (Keenan) over Scary T (Amos)
Fart69 (Prater) over Intervention (Hurts)
Chutback (Chubb) over JCor (Chark)
Kermit (Lenny) over Cardinals (Hollywood)
Lamar (Diggs) over Tim (empties)
Sluts (Buckner) over Punks (Booker)
Good luck to everyone but Cameron. Have a good week (even Cameron).
