Playoffs Week 2: Triples of the Barricuda
If you recognize any of the stuff above, I’m happy for you. That means you not only watched I Think You Should Leave, but it means you enjoyed its unhinged and weirdly punishing style of comedy enough to make it to Season 2 where Bob Odenkirk delivers my favorite performance in the show.
If you care, the premise of the above sketch is simple and built on a fairly common experience. A kid wants to do something that a parent does not, so the parent tells a white lie about why they can’t do that thing (the place is closed, they don’t sell that on Wednesdays, whatever). The kid is skeptical, so an outside adult chimes in to help the parent out. Something like, “Oh yeah, I just came from there. They are closed,” and then the two adults share a knowing nod, and everyone goes on about their day.
But what if that stranger kept going? What if they kept adding backstory to the original lie, and because the parent has already tied themselves to this person as a reputable and corroborative source of information, they have to now go along with their bullshit? That’s what we have in that sketch, where Bob Odenkirk chimes in to help out a parent (Tim Robinson), then uses that momentary bond to force the parent into backing up a series of escalating tall tales about himself. With each wildly outlandish detail Odenkirk adds about his fictional life, he pulls Robinson deeper into captivity.
“Right?” he says after claiming he owns multiple copies of classic cars. “Because if that’s not true, none of the other stuff is true.”
It’s very funny and you can watch the whole thing here.
I was rewatching the series, as I do around this time every year, and I got a little bummed that we didn’t have a new season of it drop in 2024. But then I started going over what stuff we DID get in 2024, and decided I should put together a list. Then I figured, “Hey, it’s about to be that time of year when people are stuck inside with more downtime than usual, people could be looking for stuff to watch!”
So let’s share our favorites! Hit the email thread with your favorite 2024 shows and let’s see if we can’t kill some boredom.
Here is my top-10 list of my favorite shows of 2024. I only included the ones I completely finished, so this list will be different when shows like Landman or The Agency or Shrinking wrap up. And while I chose to rank them, it’s all kind of fungible. They’re more in tiers than hard slots, but whatever.
Oh also- Shogun isn’t listed because while it obviously rips, it’s the type of show that’s either very much your bag and you’ve seen it and talked about it a ton already, or it very much isn’t and you never will. Either way, no point in me writing about it.
OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: The Day of the Jackal (Peacock), Bad Monkey (Apple), Nobody Wants This (Netflix), Sunny (Apple)
10. Dark Matter (Apple)
Fortunately for those interested in the concept of parallel realities, the entertainment industrial complex has focused on the topic, resulting in a lot of creators taking swings at how a multiverse would look/function and what interesting storytelling devices it affords. Unfortunately, the industry focused too hard on it, and now we have way too many movies and shows about it. That makes it hard to find the ones with worthwhile ideas, like Dark Matter.
The foundation is simple: What if you discovered a way to not only know what your life would be like had you made a different choice, but you could physically go there? Actually go walk around in that version of the world where you chose work instead of love, or decided to start that company, or chased your dreams of poetry. Common enough theme, but the execution is great. In Dark Matter you don’t become the alternate version of you. That version is still there, still “you” in that universe. Everything is as it was before your arrival. You are a tourist, arriving not as a replacement, but as an interloper. Imagine what you could do with access to infinite you-niverses. You could steal technology, make yourself rich, and observe solutions to problems big and small. Find out what the people you love would really do if they could do anything.
But, if you figured out how to come and go from different versions of your life, that means it’s only a matter of time before you, or several of you, also figure it out. What happens when you decide you like your reality better than your own? You can’t both stay here, or at least you can’t have this version of your life. Someone (you) is already living it. If you want it, you have to become you here. That means getting rid of yourself. So how do you outsmart the only person who thinks like you? If you is trying to kill you, where can you hide that they don’t know about? How many of you are trying to kill you?
It’s not a perfect show, but I was locked in from episode to episode, week to week. When our main character realizes returning to his EXACT reality is no longer simple and may be impossible, things hit takeoff speed and you’ll be committed. It also did what I thought would never happen: It made me like Joel Edgerton.
9. Three-Body Problem (Netflix)
Remember when this came out? Shit was an EVENT. That feels like 10 years ago, but it was March. I won’t bother summarizing the plot, but they took the usual world-is-ending story device and twisted it effectively: Everyone on Earth finds out the world is going to be destroyed by a hostile force…. 400 years from now.
There’s a whole bunch of other stuff that goes on, but the core of it is how current-day humanity tries to alter a future it will never see, and defeat an enemy it has only just found out about and will never encounter.
This show does not always work, but it is trying shit, man. I’m more than willing to grit my teeth through the bumpy parts if you’re taking me on a ride, and that’s exactly what Three-Body Problem felt like. Sometimes they were just barely keeping this thing on the road, but that’s what made it exhilarating. If you’re going to get $200 million from Netflix, take that money and GO with it. Shoot to enthrall! I wanna see some SHIT. Luckily, Benioff and Weiss very much understand that assignment. Unleash the nanofibers!
8. Everybody’s in LA (Netflix)
Speaking of snatching Netfix’s money and barely keeping things on the rails, John Mulaney’s seven-episode weekly talk show was one of the weirdest delights of the year for me. Of course you can watch all of them in a row now, but when this came out, he was actually doing all of this LIVE. Furthermore, Mulaney seems to have only the faintest outlines of a plan, and he’s the one who knows the MOST about what’s going on. It’s chaotic, confusing, exciting, and funny as hell, and you can feel Mulaney and his guests masking more and more incredulity each episode that no adults have shown up to put an end to it.
It is truly a love letter to old-school live television, and the dark joke under all of it is that Netflix funded the whole thing.
7. Shoresy (Hulu)
This should be higher up, but I am too lazy to re-order. I love this show so hard. Watching it is a wonderful experience.
It’s a show that forces you to experience it on its own terms, with a hyper-distinct style of humor, setting (semi-pro Canadian hockey), and character affectations, but it’s so fun once you let it wash over you. It’s an experience not dissimilar to a Coen Brothers movie, where the setting and the subjects are objectively low stakes to anyone not involved, but all-encompassing to the characters on screen. Despite the barrage of mean jokes and oddball personalities, Shoresy manages to tell a deeply affecting sports story over three seasons, to the point where the finale draws tears out of you.
It’s also economical. With the length of the episodes and seasons, you could watch all of it in a day. If you want to know if you’re in or out, here’s two and a half minutes of our main character, who is a semi-pro player, shitting all over high school kids in his side job as a ref:
6. The Penguin (HBO)
Your mileage may vary on anything dealing with the comic book world, but The Penguin is blessedly free of any Batman connective tissue outside of setting and character names. Like Andor before it, this was a fully-formed and well-told story (in this case a small-time crime figure’s rise to power) dropped into a pre-existing world and lightly painted to blend in.
The story is compelling and made more propulsive thanks to phenomenal character work from Collin Ferrell. The showrunners avoided the trap of thinking the main character would be interesting to people because “it’s The Penguin!” and actually did the work of making him, you know, interesting. With Farrell driving, our central figure is way more than a name, and his desperate striving unlocks so many little personality trap doors you cannot help but be compelled. He’s wounded, ambitious, ruthlessly self-centered and reckless. He’s desperate to be adored, but needs it to be the right kind of adoration and from the right type of person. His flabbergasting self-confidence is a whiplash trait developed to fight his insecurity.
Over the show’s run, his outward rise is matched with, perhaps facilitated by, his inward deterioration, culminating in a brutally well-executed final scene.
It’s a well-made crime show and character study that just happens to be set in Gotham.
Also, Sophia Falcone can come by any time. I will drop WHATEVER I am doing.
MERCY.
5. Fallout (Amazon)
Hey, it’s the other good video game adaptation! Much like Last of Us, Fallout succeeds because the source material is excellent, and the creators know WHY it works.
The world of Fallout is fully formed in the game, with enough history and complexity to take a television team anywhere they want to go. There’s endless hay to be made out of post-apocalyptic storylines, and Fallout the (beloved and possibly GOAT) game and series has tons of them already baked in. But to make it work, to translate the feeling from one medium to the other, you have to get what makes it special. You have to understand precisely what people are responding to that makes this one so much more successful than all the others.
And the showrunners (a Nolan brother!) nailed it. The gleeful melancholy. The tone of respectful irreverence. The occasional pop of emotion. That perfect balance of taking certain groups and individuals seriously while also privately laughing at the shit THEY are taking seriously. They capture the feeling of being thrust into a wildly complex environment and discovering it’s all still the same laughably simple human experience.
I got hooked on every storyline and every character. It’s the type of show you get when everyone involved has clarity of vision, and they have control of every frame. You know immediately you are in good hands.
Also, it’s got The God Walton Goggins in it, and our boy is DEALING.
4. Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Amazon)
Another set of creators who made the great show they wanted to make, then found an IP box to put it in. Amazon had the rights to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which is not a thing I would have guessed warranted a cinematic universe. But they did, and told Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane, “Remember that movie? Make a show out of it.”
So they took the most interesting and memorable part of the movie- the inter dynamics between the couple- and decided the build the plane out of that. What resulted is fantastic. It’s a piercing and entertaining study of human relationships; the frailty and insecurity, the longing, and the balance of self-protection and vulnerability, with the clandestine action stuff as the backdrop.
The highlight is watching two characters who are pretending so hard to be married that they end up dealing with all the challenges of an actual marriage- both comedic and tragic. The action setpieces are awesome, but they are there to serve the character development, not the other way around.
Also, credit to Donald Glover for knowing exactly how to use himself on screen. It’s always nice when a creator understands the best way to deploy themselves as a performer.
All respect to Taylor Sheridan, the man is responsible for like 40% of all television right now, but one of those two guys writes himself as complex, flawed characters who often fail, and the other writes guest spots where he gets to be a yoked-up badass. In one of them, he’s shirtless all episode and is banging Bella Hadid. I’m just saying sometimes humility can work, too.
3. English Teacher (Hulu)
Every once in a while, a network comedy comes along and shows us why the format is still kicking. “30-minute workplace comedy” is a formula that churns out mediocre products by the dozen each year, but just when you want to write it off as outdated, you get something like English Teacher. It’s a reminder that when that shit hits, nothing hits quite like it.
I won’t dissect all the parts that make the show hum, but I will say its top gear is when Brian Jordan Alvarez’s lead character Evan is directly dealing with modern high school students.
It effortlessly captures the exasperated frustration of our generation when interacting with the one that came after us, and the universality of that experience across every background. Alvarez’s writing is hilarious and observant, and expertly mines comedy from the moments without ever crossing into self-satisfied superiority.
English Teacher is workplace comedy done perfectly, and that is almost always perfect television.
2. Say Nothing (Hulu)
Holy shit, man. This is one you gotta want if you know what I mean. It’s not a pop in, pop out show.
Say Nothing is the story of a group of young people who came of age during The Troubles in Ireland, many of whom joined the IRA. It’s the story of the IRA’s growth and actions, painted at once as revolutionary acts of violence necessary in a fight for independence, and also acts of terrorism and extrajudicial murder. They can be both, and depending on who you ask, and more importantly when you ask them, you could get different answers.
The show bounces between the past and present, at once capturing the passion of rebellion and thrilling clarity felt by youthful revolutionaries, while simultaneously watching them grapple with the fallout of their decisions during that youth.
It’s a remarkable balancing act and the stories are woven together masterfully, and that’s all aided by knockout performances top to bottom and a rip-ass soundtrack that’s almost a character unto itself.
Say Nothing is the show I spent the most time thinking about when I wasn’t watching it, and the fact it sticks to you long after the TV has gone cold is what makes it my number two.
1. Ripley (Netflix)
If you wondered why Netflix was tossing money at a show based on a near-perfect movie from less than three decades ago, you weren’t alone. I was confused as to what more there was to do with Patricia Highsmith’s novel, given that the 1999 version was so good there were literally no notes.
I was even more baffled when they announced Andrew Scott was the lead, since he is much older than Tom Ripley is supposed to be. Not the Hollywood “older,” where you can age someone down a bit with different clothes and a bad haircut. Like 20 years older. Grown Man vs. Boyish 20s-type older.
But this is why I don’t make TV and people like Steve Zaillion do.
This show is a masterpiece for two simple reasons.
One, they took the already-rich source material and improved it in ways both subtle and overt. They twisted and stretched the story elements and character beats, grinding some into a fine-pointed blade while turning others into steel brushes. As Tom, Scott is intoxicating. He’s magnetic and repulsive, equally aspirational and reprehensible while remaining captivating in every scene. His desperation is tangible, and you’d pity him if he weren’t so capable- and if that capability wasn’t wielded so maliciously. It’s a perfect marriage of material, storyteller, and performer.
Two, this is the best-filmed thing ever put on television. There’s no qualifier to that, and there’s no real competition. As far as TV cinematography goes, there’s Ripley, then there’s everything else.
When cinematographer Robert Elswit announced they were filming on location in Europe AND they’d be shooting in black and white, I yelled “fuck off” so loud I can still hear the echo. That sentence is so film-school-pretentious I wanted to stuff myself in a locker after writing it.
When the trailer came out, I had my hater sneakers all laced up. I put Visine in so my eyes could roll freely. I was ready to be petty. Itchy to get bitchy. Bring that black-and-white bullshit, Elswit, I thought. Let’s see this low-rent-Schindler’s List.
Shut my ass up so fast. And it’s not just the trailer. The whole show looks that good. Every goddamn frame. you can pause any scene in this and any single shot could be hung in a museum. Do you know how good you have to be to call that kind of shot and not only deliver, but deliver so thoroughly that every single doubter says, “Ok my bad I’ll shut up”?
In retrospect, I may have been premature in questioning the decisions of the man who won the Oscar for best cinematography for There Will Be Blood.
The resulting stew of Zaillion’s story, Scott’s performance (and others’!), and Elswit’s god-tier work with a camera created a show so rich and engrossing it almost felt physical. As if you could walk out your door onto one of the Italian promenades, or smell the briefcase Scott was holding. Ripley was a meal of a show, and while I loved all these on the list, nothing else reached its combination of flavor, presentation, and abundance.
Inspiration corner
Now is not the time for villainy, but the time for heroism. Each week of the playoffs we will honor our own heroes, this week Josh Allen for maintaining god status, by celebrating an inspirational moment from entertainment history.
Coach Tony D’Amato from Any given sunday
Sometimes, players just need the truth. No sugar coating, no promises of a hero’s ending, just give them raw honesty and let them come to inspiration themselves.
That’s what our man Tony gives the Miami Sharks here at halftime. He’s clearly not a guy who delivers rousing speeches on the regular. He’s not an inspirational figure. He’s disheveled, and hunched, and altogether cuts a pretty sorry silhouette.
But he knows. He understands. This isn’t a man who sells you a dream, he’s the one who deals in reality. There are no qualifiers or softeners to the way things are, they just ARE. And all there is for us to do is deal with it.
The thing about those guys, though: When they finally believe, you believe them.
The more he talks, the more he starts to convince himself there’s a path to victory. Once he does, then he starts outlining how to walk it. By the end, he’s let the self-protection of ambivalence fall away and he’s going Full Pacino. When a guy starts at a 1 and speeches his way to Full Pacino, you better believe mfers who went on that ride are READY.
Also, pretty great speech for a guy who started by saying, “I don’t know what to say, really.”
THE
GAMES
THE GAMES
Will Vs. Justin (128.4-121.2)
Will -9.5 X (Will -7.2)
U 289.5 (249.6)
If any of you are with someone who doesn’t understand why we care so much about fantasy football, tell them the tale of Justin in 2024. It’s a Shakespearean tragedy of the highest order, a story of woe that transcends interests thanks to its universality. Our downtrodden hero, once formidable, finds himself at a crossroads as the league is reborn. He is safe, shielded from the pain of failure by the balm of low expectations. It has been so long since he touched glory he has nearly forgotten its texture, choosing instead to wrap himself in the soft, comforting folds of the medial. There is no exaltation here, but no pain either. To seek victory means to risk one’s heart; to expose oneself- all of oneself- to pain. To compete is to dangle over the chasm of uncertainty, and chance crashing to the unforgiving earth below. You cannot fall from the wire if you never leave the safety of the cliff.
But nothing risked, nothing gained, he decides. It’s time to get back in the ring. What he lost in the flame he will find in the ashes. He rebuilds.
He assembles the scariest team of the regular season and proves again and again his success no fluke. He threatens record books, crushes dreams, and restores faith. He remembers what it is to truly live, existing again on that fraught and thrilling plane where only champions dare to tread.
Then, in two weeks he loses to THE most annoying person in his life (who just lost to the only winless team in the league) to cost himself the first-round bye, then loses to the league’s Touchdown Tom (never count him out) in the first round.
Both of these losses have to added sting of coming to childhood friends, which means they are guaranteed to be brought up in nearly every argument for the rest of time.
Two things killed Justin this week. The first, and most significant, is that the Eagles picked Week 15 to service their receivers’ egos. Up until now, they had fully committed an NFC Championship recipe that listed only one ingredient: Saquon Barkley. It didn’t matter who the defense was or what the game was trying to dictate, they were gonna run that dude until either he died or their opponent gave way.
But then AJ Brown went and complained about not having a whole lot to do and the Eagles- who it should be noted had won nine straight using their Barkley strategy- decided to try this throwing fad for themselves. The result was Barkley getting his fewest carries since Week 10 (scoring 17 points below his average as a result) and Will getting the best passing performance of the season from his quarterback.
The second thing was, of course, his flex position. In this case it’s hard to fault him for starting Mooney over Nabers. Almost all of us would have done the same (Kyle would have picked up and started a Bills wideout). Nabers hadn’t scored a touchdown since Week 3 and his high score since Week 4 was 12 points. Mooney was up and down, but his good games were better than Nabers’ and he just put up 142 yards the week prior. Also the Falcons are competing for a playoff spot and the Giants are trying like hell to hang onto their number one pick. Everything lined up to go with Mooney, and of course that was not only wrong, but catastrophically so.
Nabers scored, got 19.2 points, and Mooney got one target which he didn’t catch. Look Kirk Cousins sucks. He sucks so hard the Falcons just benched him. But he DID just feed Mooney a week ago and was playing the Raiders, the other team with a massive vested interest in losing. (Also we make fun of poorly-run teams all the time, but let us tip our caps to the Falcons. Not only did they draft a QB in a slot that everyone agreed was a massive reach for his talent while passing up a chance to address very real needs elsewhere, they signed Cousins to a $100 million deal a year after a torn Achilles. They planned to bring Penix along slowly behind a veteran, but that veteran now leads the NFL in interceptions AND fumbles. So here they are, benching a $100 million quarterback to go with a rookie who now cuts his teeth in a playoff chase behind a bad line. That’s a bad contract, a bad draft pick, and bad rookie management, all at one position. Not quite Jets level, but not that far off)
That misfire was the dagger, as even DJ Moore and Tory Taylor’s heroic 29 combined points wasn’t enough to close the gap. Will steadily hummed his way to victory, getting just enough from the Vikings defense to advance.
Can’t Bear It
Did Justin start a Chicago Bear when he shouldn’t have?
Nah, not really
Who was it?
N/A
Who should he have started in his place?
N/A
How many points did it cost him?
None!
Examination
You could say he started DJ Moore and he should have started Nabers, but even I can’t make that bird sing. All the stuff I said about Nabers still applies. He was a 9-point player going into that game and Moore had great weeks two out of his last three, including 25 points against the very team he was set to play.
Season impact:
88.3 lost points (or, put another way, the difference between having and not having the all-time record for points in a season)
Dewitt vs. Kyle (142.4-118.4)
Kyle -12.5 X (DeWitt -24)
O 249.5 (260.8)
Buddy, if you see that man a comin’, best you head the other way. Josh Allen is a goddamn freak. He looked left and saw Lamar put up 290 and 5 to get back in the MVP race, then looked right and saw the Super Bowl Favorites crown sitting on Detroit’s head. Then, he called both over and said:
362 yards and two scores through the air, 68 and two more on the ground. The Lions said “You can be the best team over our dead bodies,” to which Allen responded, “Sure, if you want.”
He beat the dogshit out of Detroit. Made every one of them, down to a man, his new son. They each have a week to get him a tie and a funny card to make up for missing Father’s Day. It better be at his locker by the time he shows up Sunday.
This was another Bills thriller with 80 combined points, and rather than be discouraged that the last time he was there (a week ago) his superhuman efforts weren’t enough to win, he just tweaked the formula and did it all again but more effectively. The man has put up 96 fantasy points in two weeks. That’s nearly 1/3 of what Saquon Barkley has put up in 14 games. Weeks 14 and 15 have him halfway to Aaron Jones’ total. He just did Tank Dell’s whole season in two outings.
Kyle did end up going 2-for-3 on his wide receiver selections for the 15th time this year, but it could not have mattered less. Outside of Tyreek Hill, everyone scored nearly EXACTLY what they were projected. A couple points here or there, but Hill and the punter were the only slots with big differences, and even those totaled 14ish points combined.
DeWitt, meanwhile, started three running backs who all CRATERED. Hubbard, Pacheco, and Tracy missed their forecasts by 8.8 points, 9 points, and 11.3. Those should have been devastating, given that that’s both running back slots and the flex. But McLaurin did it again, picking up two touchdowns and beating his projection by nearly double. Every time you think he’s gone broke, he finds another crumpled $20 in his pocket, bets it on black, and hits.
The kicking game was big for DeWitt, and blah blah blah, but this was Allen’s doing. He’s on one like we’ve never seen. The sky is the limit, especially with them hosting New England next week. Check out the spread for that game, it’s like a goddamn college line.
DeWitt isn’t letting Will’s protracted scoring surge blind COY voters, somehow fighting his way into the semis. He’s done so by getting his ragtag unit to lay down just enough cover fire to clear the path for his cavalry, which is led by the fucking STALLION that is Josh Allen.
Round 1 Expert picks
Justin +9.5 ✅
Over 289.5 ❌
Kyle -12.5 ❌
Over 249.5 ✅
ROUND 2 PREVIEW
ROUND 2 PREVIEW
CHAMPIONSHIP ODDS FOR THE FIELD
| Team | Odds |
|---|---|
| Will Armistead | +275 |
| Micah Thoman | +300 |
| Andrew DeWitt | +475 |
| Andres Santana | +600 |
As expected, Will leads the board as the highest-scoring team left in the field. DeWitt stays ahead of Andres due to the Josh Allen Bump and the fact Andres plays Will. As momentum gathers for Will (expect that to be +250 by midday), Andres’ odds will likely take a push in the opposite direction. Perceptions of strength have effects in both directions, warranted or not.
Micah is materially unchanged, but day traders could have an opportunity on Sunday if DeWitt gets out to an early lead. Micah has a lot of points stacked on the later games, so if enough tourists come through with reactionary bets, his odds could flash up to +400 longer for a time. There could be money to grab if he’s your horse and you time it right.
Will Vs. Andres
Will -10.5
O/U 262.5
What a strange place we find ourselves in. Jerome Ford is a fantasy starter on a playoff team. Rome Odunze and DeAndre Hopkins are equal dart throws. Adam Thielen and Jerry Jeudy are both startable assets. One guy has Travis Kelce and the other guy has the tight end advantage.
I could go on, but you get it. Andres and Will line up just about even on paper given the high-variance names involved, but the oddsmakers are giving Will the edge due to matchups. Andres’ primary weapon is Lamar Jackson, and Lamar Jackson has only bad game this season. That came against Pittsburgh in Week 11, and now he’s playing them again (he had a 15-point Week 2, but he was sick all week up to the game and likely during it). The Ravens are at home this time, but I think this needs to be said clearly: The Steelers fucking OWN Lamar Jackson.
In case you aren’t familiar with the visual stylings of Football Reference, allow me to summarize. That up there is all of Mr. Jackson’s stats filtered by opponent faced. I have highlighted the Steelers line, wherein you can see the extent to which they are Jackson’s nightmare.
He has a career passer rating of 101.8, but against the Steelers, it’s 66.7. They’re the only opponent he’s faced more than once where that number is below 80. Pittsburgh forces his worst completion rate at 56.97% and they are the only team against whom he’s thrown more interceptions than touchdowns. His eight picks against the Steelers are tied for his most against any opponent, but he’s played the other team with eight (the Browns) 10 more times.
The Steelers force his lowest air yards per attempt, and their 22 sacks are second only to the Browns’ 27, but remember: he’s played Pittsburgh 10 fewer times. He’s never rushed for a touchdown against Pittsburgh, he’s fumbled the ball seven times, and he’s 2-5 against them which makes them one of three teams he has a losing record against. One of those is Kansas City, the other, strangely, is the Raiders.
So when I say they own Lamar Jackson, I mean he has to pay them rent just to look in the mirror.
That’s bad news for Andres, who usually needs all of Jackson’s powers to get his team to escape velocity. Bijan Robinson is on fire and will get tons of work against the shitty Giants with a rookie QB in for Atlanta, so the Ohio Bowl is going to be the biggest game of the day for the Aztecs. With Jeudy and Chase Brown facing each other, neither one of those teams better decide to start playing lockdown defense or this thing could be over by 2 p.m.
Will has Hurts on the road at Washington, and Commanders locked him up pretty tight last time. But the Eagles are a passing team now, or something, so who knows what he’ll be asked to do.
Achane is Achane, so how he does against the Niners will sort of depend on whether he gets a receiving touchdown. Both of those teams are emotionally broken at the moment, so how hard anyone is really trying is a mystery. I think it’s safe to bet some Dolphins players have contract incentives that are at risk thanks to their six-week sabbatical, so they’re probably not phoning it in on offense anytime soon.
The biggest matchup pop is with Rico Dowdle, who draws the Bucs defense and is now clearly the best-working part of a Cowboys offense that somehow still isn’t out of the postseason. No one on either team has a tastier matchup than Dowdle except mayyyybeeee
Trey McBride! Playing Carolina and proud owner of another NINE touchdown-less catches!
Andres has Travis Kelce, and that man is always one imagined slight away from putting up a Pro Bowl-level day, but this year just hasn’t seen them. Only three games with more than 15 fantasy points, and a season high of 20. He may still be top five, but this year belongs to young guys like Brock Bowers and McBride (and also longtime Kelce fantasy rival George Kittle).
Bowers has 177 fantasy points to McBride’s 154, and that’s because he has four touchdowns. They have the same amount of catches and are separated by 30 yards, but McBride cannot get a touchdown pass. Here’s something. J’Marr Chase has 13 more catches than Trey McBride but 15 more touchdowns. Justin Jefferson has eight touchdowns despite having seven less catches than McBride. Of the people with 40 receptions, the only three to have no touchdowns are McBride, Javonte Williams, and Jake Ferguson. Not the kind of company you want to keep.
I know I just did this, but I will continue until the universe gets its shit together. With McBride already thriving, I think Carolina is the cure for the TD blues. I think that pushes Will over the top in terms of projections.
The flex is a true wildcard for both guys, and trying to predict either Jerome Ford or Rome Odunze is a pointless endeavor I won’t partake in. One of them could very well be the game-winner, but they could just as easily combine for eight points.
If Lamar can overcome his Pittsburgh demons, it’s a track meet. If not, then I think Will’s matchup advantages start to add up.
Micah Vs. DEWITT
Micah -14.5
O/U 279.5
On paper this should be a no-brainer. Apart from quarterback, Micah has the better player at every spot but one. TE could be argued to a coinflip, but the rest outside of McLaurin Vs. Evans are pretty cut and dried. McLaurin is an absolute stud, but he’s facing the league’s toughest pass defense. Evans is facing the Cowboys. If you’re drafting you take McLaurin, but in this one week, it’s hard to say he’s a clear favorite over his elder. Personally, I’d rather have JSN than Lamb (FRAUD), but it’s inarguable that the latter is the more dangerous of the two when all things are equal. Lamb is hurt but faces Tampa, and JSN is up against Minnesota. The running backs are a sweep, and if Kamara gets the start, Micah has an obscene amount of talent for DeWitt to try to match with Chuba Hubbard, Isaiah Pacheco and/or Tyrone Tracy. Cooper Kupp is also an option at the flex, as is Tony Pollard. Micah’s defense plays the Giants, DeWitt’s plays a suddenly competent Carolina. It’s all lined up for Micah, is what I’m saying.
And yet.
DeWitt has won with this team plenty, and Micah has just enough injuries to make things interesting. Kamara, Pollard, Lamb, and Guerrendo all have the dreaded Q next to their names, and if they underperform or aggravate something and leave early, all it takes is one of DeWitt’s guys to break a long one and the sweating will start. Josh Allen is, after all. I didn’t forget a word. Josh Allen is, therefore he scores (a shitload).
And then there are the intangibles. Normally that word signals the end of anything useful when it comes to analysis. If you are listening to someone talk about sports and you hear “intangibles,” there’s a 99 percent chance they either weren’t worth listening to in the first place or they’ve run out of relevant information and are filling time. Intangibles are the ultimate dumb-guy crutch in sports talking, because they are by definition unknowable and immeasurable, so they can be whatever you need them to be. But occasionally, they do offer food for thought.
On this occasion, chew on each owner’s postseason record.
Micah has been in the playoffs 11 times. In the postseason he is 13-10. He has medaled only four of those times, most recently a bronze in 2021. His championship was in 2010.
DeWitt has seen nine postseasons, with 14 wins to seven losses. He has five medals, winning two championships, most recently in 2021. The next two seasons he finished second.
What we are seeing here is one guy who thrives in the playoffs, and one guy who, for whatever reason, can’t seem to figure them out. Micah is no doubt aware of the fact that he’s had too many bites of this apple to have so little to chew. Does he overthink his lineups in the postseason? Does he tinker too much? Not enough? Is it a matter of too many bad matchups? Does he have unnatural bad injury luck? What is it that keeps him locked in Marvin-Lewis-Bengals, Bobby-Cox-Braves territory? More importantly, now that I’ve brought it up yet again, will he change his strategy? Will someone start that normally wouldn’t have? Maybe he’ll stay up all night changing guys in and out of the flex spot and sleeps past the start of the noon games, accidentally leaving all of them on the bench.
These are the dreaded intangibles of which I speak.
EXPERT PICKS:
Our cappers here at Bailey’s Sportsbook took a look at all the numbers and ran 100 simulations to determine the best picks
Like Travis Hunter and the Heisman race, this feels like a runaway narrative for Will. His late-season surge and championship history already had the pile of wood smoldering, and his win over crowd-favorite Justin blew it into a full blaze. Now, the storyline is feeding the odds increase which is in turn reinforcing the narrative, and so on. If you didn’t get in last week, you’ve missed your shot at value.
DeWitt’s running back issues have us spooked, and Micah’s short odds keep him from being a big ROI. If you like him to win it all, bet your heart and win a little cash while you do it. If you have any doubts, the payoff isn’t worth the gamble. For us, Andres is still the best return on the board. If you believed enough to bet him at +950, double down now.
Round 2 Picks
Andres +10.5, Over 262.5
Micah -14.5, Under 279.5
Last week:
Safest money odds on the title futures has to be Micah, who has more than enough to roll into the championship and can run with anyone in the field on points. However, given the sizeable gap between playoff appearances and playoff wins, we caution against too much certainty. There’s a lot of concern about postseason performance here. Justin and Will will draw the most action, as the winner of Round 1 will be the odds favorite coming out of it. It’s too close to call for us, so if you like either team, lay your money on who you think survives the week. Vegas isn’t dumb, so there’s not a ton of value for bettors there given the shorter odds, but there won’t be any value after this week, so get in now.
The best value we see is on Andres at +950. Yes, his regular season numbers are underwhelming, but the market is being slow to adjust to the team he has now. Brown and Robinson are both RB 1-caliber, and if Jeudy and Thielen are going to play like this (nothing indicates they’re going to slow down), then he’s a 140-point team with Lamar. He’ll need Kelce to get past the big boys, but in terms of risk/reward, he’s the best bet on the board.
Round 1 picks
Justin +9.5, Over 289.5
Kyle -12.5, Over 249.5
