The game of the week delivered, in a sense. It was the only matchup where the win% wasn’t 99-1 heading into Sunday Night Football. It was the least competitive week of the season, and you’d have to imagine it was the least competitive week in league history. I can’t remember having zero angle for Monday night intrigue before.
I regret thinking I had a real team. The disappointment of losing is so much heavier when you actually expect to win. It’s a proper trade-off for the thrill of winning when you expect to lose. I’ll grant that. I lived. I won a couple of stinkers and then scored a legit 170. And now I am dead. How dead? Joe Flacco led my team in scoring this week, and Josh Downs was second, and neither of them eclipsed 20 points. I started two Jags, and—suspend your disbelief if you can—they were my worst two scorers, each under five points. Mike Evans scored 5.4 points before the Bucs scored a single point. 51 Bucs points later, Evans had… 5.4 points. What? Like… what?
Shelby might just have a real team. Okay, let’s not get crazy. She got 19 from a kicker and won by 17. Joe Burrow scored a 47-yard rushing TD and outscored Joe Flacco by less than a point. And of course the Antoine Winfield trade would come back to bite me. Dude has missed the entire season up to now, but when it’s time for my matchup with Shelby, Winfield like immediately scores a TD. It’s all love. It’s all respect. I’m just reeling from the vertigo of scoring the second most points one week to the second fewest the next, and the most recent result feeling the more legitimate. Shelby’s Bengal-Steeler lineup is something she’s been cornered into, but it’s working for her. I mean, as much as anything is “working for” a team with a 2-4 record.
I badly needed this win. It would have taken me to 4-2 before a three-game stretch against Coleman, Sean, and Evan. At 4-5, I was still going to be on that playoff fringe. At 3-6, not so much, especially since so many of my bye weeks come after that stretch. I’m not giving up, but without a QB or any IDP juice, I’m also not in a buying position. I have no real interest in improving, but I’m willing to ride the wave and see what happens (i.e., wait for my team to score some points so I can sell my players at max value).
More importantly, W. Brian matches the season’s longest winning streak at four, and he’s so hot, he gets to bench his Monday nighters every week. He’s so hot he keeps benching huge points and winning anyway. For the second straight week, he gets almost 25 from his DB. He gets another nice game from (fantasy MVP?) Jayden Daniels, and if Tyler Bass had missed one more kick, he might have lost in stat corrections.
If Cameron had started Tyler Allgeier over literally anyone, he would have won. If he had started any QB except Dak, he would have won. Okay, not really. If he had done either of those things, Brian would have started Breece Hall Monday night and won. But if Cameron had done both, if he’d started Kirk Cousins and Tyler Allgeier versus the worst team in the league, he would have won even with Breece in the lineup. So, you know, be better.
Cameron followed up the tight loss with a nice trade. He was able to get Jordan Love for Austin Ekeler and Fred Warner. I offered a 5th for Love, let it sit for a few hours, then panicked and pulled it back. Now I’m wondering whether a 5th was worth anything compared to Ekeler and Warner. Evan is heating up, eyeing the playoffs, and picks aren’t helping him toward that end. Picks have been treated as currency, but that currency hasn’t converted to fantasy points, not in any meaningful way. Coleman’s draft wasn’t influenced by one margin pick; he had an overwhelming supply of high-value picks to go with high-value keepers. He had the nuts and the flop. A 5th Round pick is essentially just hitting in blackjack. Anyway, Cameron gets Love, so as we hit midseason, he’s more of a playoff team than not. He’s more competitive than I am, for sure. But parity reigns. Of the five 2-4 teams, one has Josh Allen, one was 19 points off the season-lead in scoring coming into this week, and one just scored 219 points this week. I don’t know if being 3-3 would make me feel like a playoff team. I mean, I AM 3-3, and I definitely don’t feel like a playoff team.
Coleman sits alone in first place again after another pretty breezy win. Technically it got close. If Coleman had just ignored last week’s preview note, it would have been a more convincing win. As it stands, he won by seven, and it took a combined 80 from Hurts, Henry, and Flowers, and a pair of 15s from Tucker and Watt.
Corey had a solid 75 from Goff, Bucky, and McLaurin, and he got 20 from his kicker (who, mind you, did not kick a field goal in college, which is what over-researching your kicker moves will teach you). But his bench was byes and red ink. There was no meat on this bone. Corey just needed to get luckier with his IDP adds. He really needed to get luckier with the Hutch injury. Hutch was on pace for another monster game, maybe enough to deliver the win. Instead, he’s out for the year. As bad as Corey’s injury luck has been, I think this is the first player to actually have a season-ender. Maybe I’m forgetting someone. Hey, maybe Corey’s still in this thing. He was fourth in scoring this week, a season-high 157, 30 more than his previous season high (137 last week). Dare I say Corey is heating up? Or is that just the team hot tub overflowing from too many people getting in? (PS, that image reminds me of when we overflowed the hot tub at my bachelor party. Good times.)
Like, Kennedy needed a baseline from the rest of his roster, but his three Lions combined for 50 again. 50 might even be a season-low. Sure felt effortless. Lazard had a huge game with the Hail Mary, but that was just gravy. Kennedy had it wrapped enough before the Monday action. Xavier McKinney finally ended his INT streak, making him the only player under seven points. But aside from Lazard and the Lions and Stroud, Kennedy’s players were between seven and 11 points. It was a solid team win, but it leaves room for doubt.
Max had four players under seven points. Besides Lamar, his best player was Jameson Williams, which, hey, great pick, but Jameson Williams was supposed to be your third best receiver and even have a difficult time cracking the lineup over the RB Cerberus. Max’s season is getting ugly. He’s still top-5 in points, but he’s just lost his fourth straight. Still, he’s not giving up. I can confirm he’s not giving up because I tried to get Lamar (and Likely) for Fields, LaPorta, and a 4th, and Max swiftly denied me because “I don’t think trading for two worse players will help my fantasy team.” Can’t argue with that.
Evan is the first team to hit 200, and he might have set an unbreakable season-high at 219. It made him so confident the he decided he didn’t need a backup QB anymore. Love was showing up the starter, and he needed to be shipped out. Respectable. I don’t love that Evan was, like, targeting Ekeler as compensation, but the Fred Warner addition is impactful. Obviously 219 is not sustainable, but averaging 150 or so going forward looks realistic, and that’s pretty elite. Basically you’re not getting 20 from Kmet and 28 from Will Anderson, and the Godwin-Baker stack isn’t good for 60 every week, but again, we’re talking about Evan coming down from this high by 50-60 points and still being among the highest scoring teams in the league. I’m scared of our upcoming matchup, for sure. The Marvin Harrison injury doesn’t even make a dent. It doesn’t make a dent. Harrison scored zero points in the starting lineup, and the team had 219. Disgusting.
Spencer just got caught in a bad matchup. 155 was good for fifth in scoring this week. Allen had 29 despite an uneven game against a good defense, Dobbins cemented his bell-cow status, Tank Dell did what you hoped he would do with Nico out, Garrett Wilson is looking like the go-to guy, and the IDPs had a down week. Spencer shouldn’t worry about being 2-4. A couple more losses, and you can bail. But I think the wins are coming.
Oliver lifted that conch high over his head and thrusted down as hard as he could. He didn’t just beat Sean. He buried him. Sean had 60 points from two players on Thursday night and finished the week with 129. His RBs were total garbage, which is great not because they’ll keep being garbage, but because when you compare that garbage to the 30 WR points on Sean’s bench, now Sean will entertain going away from the heavy-RB lineup, throwing his team off-balance and possibly, just a sliver of hope here, causing enough disruption to knock him out of the playoff picture by the time it’s all said and done. It’s only two losses, fine. But just keep pulling that thread, and who knows.
Oliver is only 3-3, but it’s starting to look really good. If his starters can maintain this momentum, he’s competing against anybody any week. He did this without Brian Robinson and Davante Adams. There’s meat on the bone after this 179 point week. Sure, Caleb’s probably not hitting 40 again, but there was some fucking trash in the lineup actually weighing this thing down. Chris Olave caught one pass, fumbled, and left with a concussion for negative points. Oliver had two IDPs under five points, and he matched Sean’s 30 WR points on the bench. Viva la resistance!
Waivers are totally gross, to the point that I can’t even organize a list. I just hope at this point you’ve assembled enough of a team that you aren’t living or dying on waivers anymore. We should have mostly scrubbed this thing dry by now. The Sean Tucker game is proof that we have no idea what’s going on anymore. Teams are in full-on tendency-breaker mode, and any of like 20 free agents could score 20 points any given week going forward. Just have fun with it. See you Thursday.
